And Unto Him She Shall Return
by maple-lake
Summary: She would always return.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (1?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_and I should have given you a reason to stay  
__given you a reason to stay  
__this is fact, not fiction  
__for the first time in years_

"A Lack of Color" – **Death Cab for Cutie**

He knew it was her – even from a distance. The heavy grace in her walk. The reverence as she laid a bouquet of flowers next to the headstone. He waited and watched for what seemed like forever, and he was by no means a patient man.

He never would understand people and cemeteries. Nothing there to say anything to. You could talk to dead people at home, if you were so inclined to talk to dead people in the first place. He sighed, rubbing his cane softly, pushing "what if" from his mind. Cameron chose that moment to suddenly look around her apprehensively – no, expectantly. Damn her keen awareness, House thought.

Her eyes fell on him and her face was a mixture of sadness and…something else. Expectance. Still so easy to read, he thought, half disappointed. Taking a deep breath, he began to amble toward her, awkwardly making his way around the gravestones. She quickly glided toward him, no doubt to shorten his walk. When they finally came face to face, neither spoke. The stillness of the cemetery, even when punctured by passing cars, seemed to draw them both out of time. For a blessed beat, and then another, they shared a moment of being – a moment perfectly delicious in its lack of words. In an instant, House remembered all that he had missed about her presence and all that he loathed.

It was finally his curiosity that prompted him to say, "You don't look shocked." She looked frozen for a moment, and then she laughed. He was surprised at how unobjectionable he now found the glittering sound.

"It's been a long time," she said. He looked at her anticipatorily, still waiting for an answer. "I knew that, if you'd ever want to see me again, you'd come here to find me." Her effortless honesty never ceased to surprise him simply because of the sheer rareness of it in the world at large, and he seemed mildly pleased by the answer.

"Then it would seem that you make this annual trek either to satiate your curiosity as to whether I'll show up, or because you're hoping I'll do just that."

"Nice to see that your ego is as healthy as ever," she smirked. This was a little strange. Not that Cameron had never snarked back, but she had only ever done it sparingly, mostly unknowingly – and least of all with him.

"So, which is it?" He steered the conversation in his originally intended direction, reasserting his power for his own peace of mind. Now there was a slight trace of surprise on her face.

"Maybe I like visiting my husband's grave."

"Oh come on. No one likes visiting cemeteries. Besides, it's not like _he_ knows if you're here or not."

"I don't come for him. I come for me," she said softly, and he was satisfied at finding truth.

"Damaged guy?" he said, cocking his head to indicate the direction she'd come from.

"You came all this way to be mean?"

"Wasn't that far."

"You had to fly. You hate to fly."

"I don't _hate_ to fly."

"They do have a drink maximum, don't they?" Cameron balked, "You have to sit next to total strangers who want nothing more than to tell you their life story. Shall I go on?"

"Okay, so I hate flying. What's your point?

"Why are you here?" When had the conversation slipped into her control? He decided to give up some precious little ground as he devised a strategy to reclaim his rightful power. His meandering gaze wandered closer to her, resting on her gloved hand, her defiantly set chin.

"Don't know," he said, his eyes briefly meeting hers. Breathing a self-satisfied sigh that roused further suspicion in House, she said, "Follow me." And he did.

The café was small, intimate, and local. Cameron loved it. It was the perfect nook from which to gaze out at the world on a sunny afternoon. Or a rainy one, for that matter, she thought as she glanced at the sky.

She had decided the first time she'd been to the café that, if House ever showed his face, it was where she'd take him. The staff knew her and smiled warmly as she and House entered the jingling door. She could feel him wince behind her at the delicate music of the bells and a masochistic grin pulled at the corners of her mouth. _What am I doing_, she thought. A creeping sense of guilt burrowed its way into the back of her mind. The waitress innocently seated them in an intimate booth near the back, unaware of the sheer momentousness of the situation at hand. _Stop me!_, Cameron wanted to scream. But then, she'd never been that good at avoiding House. Hence the moving hundreds of miles away, she wryly thought.

She noticed House giving her a strange look from across the table, and stared back with what she hoped was a cheerful look of gumption. _I'm not the same Allison_, she made her mental mantra into focal point for her fluttering stomach. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

"I ate on the plane," he quipped. Making a face, she ordered a hot chocolate and recommenced their staring game. "Nice shoes," he said, finally breaking the silence, "New?" For a moment she smiled, wondering if he remembered or if it was mere coincidence. Yet the memory also brought with it a bought of pain, and her smile turned into a determined frown.

"Why are you here?" she asked again.

"Hey, you're the one that left me, remember?" She sighed loudly in exasperation, averting her gaze. "No Christmas cards, no Chanukah presents. I suspect Wilson gets a Chanukah present." She looked at him, startled, before she could stop herself. "Oh relax, Wilson hasn't been spilling any beans, I'm just incredibly smart. Now here I am, trying to make nice conversation with you…" House trailed off, shaking his head.

"Nice cane," she said, her voice level and smooth, "New?" House pursed his lips, as if in deep thought, nodding his head.

"Ooooh. Cold. Icy cold," House intoned. They both awkwardly looked away as the waitress returned with Cameron's drink. She blew on it gently and then sipped it as House pretended not to watch out of the corner of his eye. "How did you know I'd come to the cemetery? I mean, I could have just asked Wilson or Foreman – or better yet called a bunch of hospitals in the greater Boston area. It's not like I do much else." She smiled slyly, raising her left shoulder as if to dismiss his question. "You've gotten mean," he said, but there was a playful note in his voice.

"Maybe I've finally figured out how to be mean to _you_."

"Welcome to the club. I hear there are t-shirts. Modeled after the ones those girls at – say, does Boston even _have_ a Hooters?" She couldn't help it any longer – she cracked a smile and a small, stilted laugh. Damn her for finding him funny. All the funny men in the world and his was the sense of humor that appealed to her. _They should take away my medical license_, she thought. Taking a deep breath, however, she decided to revert back to tactic number one, promising herself she'd keep on until victorious.

"Why-"

"…am I here?" he finished. Her eyes were serious and round now, her complete attention focused intently on him. She felt like she used to feel at the beginning of her fellowship: in awe of the great Dr. House, hell bent on absorbing every word, every syllable that came out of his mouth. Though it hadn't taken her long to realize how few syllables really meant anything, it had taken her a lot longer to stop listening to every morsel. Apparently not long enough, she thought ruefully.

"I'm here to offer you a job," he said slowly, his eyes meeting hers on the last word. She furrowed her brow in confusion.

"A job? What kind of job?"

"One where there would be patients and you would act as a sort of, oh, I don't know, doctor, and – theoretically – help them get well."

"I mean what department?"

"My department." She looked at him, both surprised and not surprised at his eternal ability to leave her speechless and in awe of his sheer capacity for audacious behavior.

"But the only people that work in your department are you-"

"And the people that work for me."

"Let me get this straight. You're offering me my old job back?"

"Now, now, _old_ is such a relative term. Can't we call it new? A new job with new colleagues in a new – okay, well it's still the same old office, but you get the picture." He looked at her for a few minutes then, with that smug expression of anticipating agreement with whatever he'd just said. She both hated and loved that look, because, though he was a smug bastard, he _was_ right most of the time. Not this time though, she thought.

"Are you insane?"

"Is that going to affect your decision to take the job?"

"I have a reputation here. It's taken me a long time to build that reputation – five years to be exact. And maybe it's not as illustrious as the reputation of the great – though standoffish and reclusive – Dr. House, but it's mine and I value it highly. And for you to suggest that I throw all that away to come back and obey your orders and sort your mail-"

"I thought you liked sorting my mail."

"I'm not taking my old job."

"It wouldn't be your old job. It would be your new job. Is there an echo in here?"

"And how exactly would it be different from my old job?" For some reason he wasn't interested in pursing, he found the crease in her forehead as she puzzled over his non-logic comforting. She'd always made an honest attempt at decoding him, even when the message was worthless.

"Well, you would work for me along with the other people that work for me. But you'd be like _way_ cooler because you've done it before." She now gazed at him blankly. This had been easier the first time. He sighed before saying, "What do you want? Personal office? Ego-inflating yet meaningless made-up job title? A car?" Her only response was to cock her head to the side, a smug smirk on her face. Damn her, House thought. Why couldn't she simply take the job and not think about the 'whys'? "I'd offer a date, but we tried that once before and I don't remember it going so well-"

"I want to know why you're here," she said calmly yet firmly.

"Have you developed an unexpected learning disability in our years apart?" House reached into his pocket, retrieving a small white tablet that he pointedly popped into his mouth. When had Cameron grown such a spine?

"Why _me_? Why now?"

"You know, I always did have a soft spot for you. And I've simply been dying to see Boston in the fall," House said with false drama, fluttering his eyelashes.

"Know what I think? _I_ think – and I'm just guessing here – _I_ think you need to hire a woman," Cameron revealed her knowledge triumphantly. House immediately drew a mental list of people to kill. He'd use the plane ride home to figure out how to make each look like an accident. He wouldn't bother finding out which person on the list was the true culprit – that took time and effort. Much easier to do away with everyone.

He looked away, clearly pissed off, and Cameron felt that damn skip in her chest that she thought she'd forgotten. He looked tired, more tired than she'd ever seen him. Wilson had insinuated that House was gradually veering in the direction of deterioration, but she hadn't really accepted it until seeing him herself. Fun and revenge aside, she mused on how truly difficult asking her back was for him. She had to offer him hope. She had to. Before she could decide on her approach, however, House's gaze had found a path of retaliation.

"Interesting necklace. It's new." She felt her face pale then flush as her hand immediately covered the object hanging discreetly inside her unbuttoned shirt. A solid gold band with the largest diamond House had seen since Wilson's last marriage, the ring had caught his eye immediately after his gaze dropped from her face.

"You catalogued my jewelry?" Cameron said, trying to buy herself some time.

"Now that is either one hell of an engagement ring, or somebody's been taking the 'my right hand is for me' jewelry ads a bit too seriously." Cameron's eyes were wide and unblinking as she held his gaze. So, House mused, she thought that if she remained very still, and very quiet… Clearly, she didn't remember _everything_ about him. "The real question is why it's around your neck instead of on your finger. Could be you haven't decided yet. But then, you're too nice to tease the guy by wearing it around. Perhaps you've accepted, but don't want your other boyfriend to notice. Hiding it inside your shirt though –"

"Once I lost it." She said, angry that she'd forgotten its heavy presence on her chest. "I wear it around my neck on days I work. Put it back on when I get home." As the cheap thrill of puzzlement faded, House found other, less desirable emotions creeping in. Emotions he neither wanted to deal with nor acknowledge. How the hell could Wilson not tell him _this_?

Cameron engaged. He'd never considered it. He thought she'd had enough of marriage, what with the dead husband and all. But of course – people would want to marry Cameron. She was clearly good looking and so damn _nice._ He suddenly wished they were in a bar.

"What's his name?" Cameron gave him a skeptical, "not in this lifetime" look and he balked considerably. "You don't know his name? Is that what turns you on?" Her look turned sour and annoyed. "What does the future Mr. Cameron do?" She rubbed her temples, trying to decide what morsels would satisfy his curiosity enough to shut him up.

"He's a doctor." As House's triumphantly smug look made her head throb she wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to pop one of his Vicodin.

"What kind of doctor?"

"Surgeon," she said quickly, racking her brain for a way to change the topic.

"What _kind_ of surgeon?" House asked in exasperation, yet feeling he had struck a vein of some sort. She regarded him for a moment, gray eyes piercing his blue. He would find out anyway. He was House.

"Cosmetic." House's grin got impossibly larger and a small, rare laugh briefly rumbled in his throat.

"_How_ did you meet?" House asked, and she sensed him newly appraising her body, looking for signs of recent "work." A flood of anger coursed through her. She'd developed a list of rules for herself concerning House after she'd left Princeton Plainsboro. Never letting him near her personal life again? Yeah, that had been pretty high on the list. I have to stop this, she thought, now.

"If I was your partner," she said abruptly. Still enjoying his inquisition, House was momentarily confused.

"What?"

"That's the only way I'd consider coming back. If it was as your partner, on equal ground. Same level of pay, same office space, same privileges." She saw his mind reeling, saw she'd regained the upper hand for however brief a moment, and decided to take this as far as she could. "And you'll hire another doctor to take the job you tried to pawn off on me. A _female_." He looked at her strangely. This unexpected move had caught him embarrassingly off guard. She had changed. Quite a bit more than he'd thought.

"I'd have to talk to Cuddy," he said, and for a moment she saw the desire that had prompted him to come to Boston for her. It was that same desire in him that she wasn't sure he knew existed, the one that had always made her feel alternately desperately hopeful and desperately fearful – of what, she had no idea. She gently fingered the ring around her neck, searching for that feeling. She smiled a little at its absence even as she sighed in disappointment. House was starting to give her another strange look.

"Fine. But I'm not saying I'd come back for sure, even if Cuddy agreed to all that. I have to think about it."

"You'd have to discuss it with Mr. Cameron," he said, but the amusement was gone. They looked at each other for a few more drawn out seconds, each unblinking and not breathing.

"I should go," she said, and he could hear the fear deep within. Fear of him – or at least of her being anywhere in the vicinity of him. The fear was wrapped in her newfound confidence and snark, however, which was what really intrigued him. He nodded as she went on about having Wilson give him her contact information, and then she was gone. He stared across the table at the vacant seat, eyes resting briefly on the mug with faint traces of lipstick. At least he would have the satisfaction of Cuddy being pissed when he finally told her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (2?)

**Characters:** Cameron/House

**Spoilers**: Some S1

**Summary**: _She would always return._

**A/N:** Thank you for the comments! I'm going to try to pay less attention to "real life" and focus more on updating!

_(i do not know what it is about you that closes  
__and opens;only something in me understands  
__the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)  
__nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands_

"somewhere i have never traveled" – **e.e. cummings**

Cameron heaved a sigh of relief as she unlocked the door to the apartment she shared with her fiancé. Sleet could be heard sharply pelting the windows, a reminder of the stinging whirlwind she'd just escaped. She glanced at the clock: 4:05 pm. He wouldn't be home for another hour or two. Dropping off her bag of groceries in the kitchen, she proceeded to the bathroom for a towel. She was horrified by what she saw in the mirror. The curls in her dark hair had slowly melted into something between wavy and "mental patient." Shivering out of her damp clothes she quickly jumped into a hot shower.

_Damn House!_ The thought flashed through her much as it had been doing all afternoon. His ability to just waltz into lives and situations, doing whatever he felt like doing. _And yet_, a voice in her head intoned, _you expected this._ That was what angered her more than anything else. It meant that all this growth, this evolution as a person that she thought she'd accomplished away from the magnetic pull of House was meaningless. She had not only thought he'd come some day - she had hoped.

You are happy, she reminded the voice. And it was true. She had a fiancé, a strong and daily-growing reputation as an immunologist who was constantly being consulted on strange cases – why was she even thinking about giving that up to go back to Plainsboro? She'd convinced herself that House and that hospital had been her "rebound," her foray into life after David before she could truly start over. Going back would mean…what?

Out of the shower, she dressed for a comfortable evening at home and began to prepare the semi-lavish dinner she'd been planning ever since telling House she'd "think about it." News like this could only be broken over some kind of fish – grouper, she'd decided at the market. 'Hi honey, how was your day? Want to move to New Jersey so I can work with a misanthropic son of a bitch I was once attracted to?' She outwardly smiled at the thought, while her inner voice only piped up, _Once_?

With a sigh she went back to her cooking, wondering just where that fiancé of hers _was_. Most likely dealing with botox obsessed patients. Probably something to do with the crappy weather too. She was about to slice vegetables for the salads when a firm knock sounded on the door. Rolling her eyes at his inability to ever remember his keys, she wiped off her hands and shuffled to the door.

Briskly and impatiently she threw open the door, her face one of playful chastisement as she said, "What did I say would happen next time you forgot your key?"

"Gosh, I don't know, but count me in," the voice of House actually caused her jaw to drop open in surprise. She noticed, as she had not before, that he was wearing the same hat and coat as always. It both comforted her and angered her. She absently said his name aloud, and he gave her a few moments to absorb the sight before her.

"How did you –"

"I called the hospital. _This_ time I cheated," he said. And she was briefly and absurdly amused by the disappointment in his voice.

"The hospital just doesn't give out-"

"I told them I was Wilson." His answers were unusually quick, his cat and mouse game suspended for the moment. She began to wonder why until she saw him involuntarily shudder, leaning a little heavier on his cane. Instinctually, she opened the door wider and heard herself inviting him inside. He gruffly acceded, looking uncomfortable. She would never get over how uncomfortable he could make someone feel for helping him.

With the door closed, heat regained the upper hand, and it seductively danced with the cold between them. She felt as though she were staring down a paradox. She could feel the chill seeping out of House, but the fierceness of his personality in his gaze belied any notions that he was cold. Forcing herself to at least attempt mental compartmentalization, she refocused her attention on the strange noises coming from her kitchen and the impending arrival of a certain doctor. The two stood in charged silence, not knowing why, nor what to say.

"Grouper?" House asked, searching the air above him as though it might morph into visual aids to help his nose. She nodded, suddenly thinking of how she looked to him. Then she almost laughed at the absurd triviality of her thoughts.

"What are you doing here?" Her words came out a bit more panicked than she'd intended, a fact noticed by House. Attempting to gain some control over her voice, she added, "You can't be here. You _can't_ be here."

"You know, you really have lost some of that sickening sweetness. Does Wilson know? He must not, cause the first person he'd go blaming would be me."

"House." Her tone was serious and warning. "You really can't be here. I thought you were going back to New Jersey."

"Flight was canceled," he said in an uninterested voice while his eyes expertly scanned her home, looking for something, anything. "They're kind of closing the airport." She looked at him helplessly. "They set up cots for us." It took her a moment to realize the implications of his dilemma and then a moment more for her to realize the need to avoid the train wreck she knew was about to occur.

"And the hotels?"

"Booked. You think I'd be here if they weren't?" She failed to respond to his comment, and was surprised to find herself bristling at it.

"And there's no one else you know in Boston?" Here he gave her a dark look which she shrugged off - revenge for his previous comment. "House, I'm sorry, there's just no way…"

His face twisted into a wry look of disappointment. "Papa Bear?" House intoned, and it was like a slap in the face. In the same day he'd walked back into her life, jumbled it up beyond her wildest imaginings, and was now trying to calmly reassert his position as her unwanted life coach. She'd spent five years building a complex mental defense system against him and it had taken him all of five minutes to make her forget she'd ever quit. "So, what's the verdict?"

"House," she said, her tone now pleading, "You don't understand."

"Oh my God," his eyes gleamed, his face lighting up, "You're a lesbian!" She shot him a deadly look as she moved away from him, creating more distance. He gave her a strange look but, instead of glancing away, she held his gaze.

"Richard…doesn't know that I know you."

House's eyes gleamed like a child's and his tone was full of wonderment as he said, "His name is Dick?"

"Let's just skip the fact that you're five for a second, shall we?"

"Okay," he nodded, assuming a façade of seriousness, "You're right. So…you're afraid he'll be jealous once he finds out you used to work for me? Is he obsessed with me too? I can see why you guys get along; you've got a lot in common."

"He doesn't _know_ you. I mean, sure, he's _heard_ of you. But the kinds of things everyone always says about you. I've been there when your name comes up – he thinks you're some kind of mad scientist."

"He's a _cosmetic surgeon_ whereas I am a real doctor. He sucks shit out of people's thighs and injects poison into their faces and _I'm_ the crazy one?"

"He's a doctor, okay? He went through medical school, just like you and me."

"Yeah," he scoffed, "Except I went to a real medical school while you went to some kind of girly vet camp."

"He's got some of your old papers, articles on you…he marks them up, brings them to dinners we have with his colleagues. You're not the only doctor they do this to," she shrugged, "They just know that they can…rely on you. For fodder."

"And yet he doesn't know you were one of my grunts? What's the matter, afraid they won't believe your first-hand stories?" His words were sarcastic and biting. She wondered, though, (as she always did) if, at the end of the sarcasm, he _felt_.

"You don't understand – he doesn't really know the real you. He doesn't know that I know you either. That's why you can't be here, please. If you're here then I have to explain how I know you – and why you're here – and I can't _do_ that with you here." House's face turned blank for a moment and Cameron was unsure what to make of his veil.

Just then, the sound of a key turning in the door caused both of their heads to snap in that general direction. "Ali, I told you to lock the door," a deep voice came through the doorway followed by a tall, dark-haired man in a snow-crusted trench coat. Dr. Richard Whiting's face went slack upon seeing House and then, with an astonished look at his fiancé, broke into a large grin. "Dr. House? Dr. Gregory House!" he exclaimed in disbelief. House managed to turn his ever present frown into a straight line, but stood still, saying nothing. Oh shit, Cameron thought, pasting a smile on her face.

"Sweetheart….ah…uh…Dr. House, this is my fiancé Dr. Richard Whiting. Honey, _this_ is Dr. House."

"Dr. House, this is an honor. I can truly say that you are the last person I ever expected to see here." Turning to Cameron he asked in a quieter voice, "Is this an early wedding present? My birthday? How'd you do this?" House looked very uncomfortable, though he had shaken Richard's hand. Damn him for this – damn him, Cameron thought furiously. There was no turning back now.

"Actually, I kind of know House," she began tentatively.

"What?" His head swiveled back between the two in amazement. "And you never told me?"

"Cameron's humble that way," House spoke up for the first time and Cameron held her breath. Richard regarded the man, slowly and thoughtfully beginning his appraisal. "That and she signed a non-disclosure agreement." Her shoulders slumped a little and she shook her head mouthing, 'what?'.

"A non-disclosure agreement?" Richard asked.

"Yeah, I make all the kids do it. I find they're more willing to carry out my orders that way."

"Uh, okay," Richard laughed, deciding to go along though he didn't fully understand. "Are you staying for dinner?"

"My flight to Jersey was canceled, so that sounds like a great idea," House said quickly, glancing at Cameron's glare as he finished. After ascertaining that House was without accommodations, Richard extended the invitation through the next morning, much to House's victorious delight and Cameron's weary defeat. Richard excused himself to change for dinner, and Cameron shot House a perplexed look before wordlessly walking into the kitchen.

Dinner was awkward for Cameron, to say the least. She was constantly aware of House's information gathering in a way Richard seemed all but naïve to. Richard was clearly under the impression that she'd arranged this all for his personal amusement. Every time he smugly inflicted a subtly sarcastic barb in House's direction she grew tense at House's apparent amusement and Richard's perpetual ignorance.

The lovely dinner she'd planned so carefully tasted like sawdust in her mouth as she choked down forkfuls in between House's comments. She was worried that House would mention the job offer, that he would allude to anything in her life at Plainsboro - things that she had tried so desperately to forget. Every time House asked another question she held her breath, willing Richard to be a bit more discrete with this man he'd just met.

It wasn't long before Richard was begging for a classic "House case," a story he could mentally add to his House collection. House himself looked delighted at the suggestion. As he drummed his fingers on the table, dramatically searching the ceiling with his eyes, Cameron fought back a chuckle. They weren't all that different, the two men in front of her. House, however, would always far outrank Richard in terms of mastering the art of manipulative sarcasm.

She decided to take control before House embarrassed her for his own amusement. Flipping through the memories, thick and slow in her mind, she settled on one of the less complicated ones, saying, "What about the nun with the copper allergy that one Christmas?" House narrowed his eyes at her intrusion on his fun, yet chose to remain silent. Richard, however, looked intrigued. Cameron briefly gave the upbeat, television drama version of the case, hoping that it would be enough to satiate Richard for now and that the discussion could move on.

"But how did you find out about the abortion?" Richard asked after she was all done.

"Well, Dr. House-"

"I got the head nun to tell me. You see, when they think she's dying, they'll tell you the truth."

Richard looked mildly disturbed at the latter part of House's statement and seemed to be forming another question when Cameron said, "Yup. Nun told us, House guessed what to look for, problem solved."

"Everybody lies," House said, waggling his eyebrows. Cameron decided that the next time she was alone in a room with House she would take his cane and whack him. Hard. It had actually been one of her fantasies even before she'd quit.

"Everybody…._lies_?" Richard repeated slowly. Sweet Richard, who, though a cosmetic surgeon, had a ridiculously strict set of medically ethical rules he enjoyed following. She had liked that about him. She liked less his critical mocking of doctors he deemed less "medically moral" than himself, but she couldn't deny that she had once been a little like that herself. It was why he'd become obsessed with House in the first place, seeing him as a powerful talent pitifully wrapped up in his own amoral agenda. Cameron could hardly blame him – she'd once thought the same herself.

"Who wants dessert? I've got pie," Cameron said, starting to clear the table.

"What do you mean by that?" Richard asked.

"I've always thought it was pretty self-explanatory," House said, crinkling his face in mock confusion. Cameron tried to shoot daggers at him with her eyes, but only succeeded in getting purposely ignored as House delved deeper into his fun.

"Yes, but you can't mean-"

"Richard, Dr. House has offered me a job." Both men instantly turned toward Cameron, very different expressions on their faces.

"A job?" Richard's voice was filled with such innocence and honesty. The day had been a nightmarish blast from the past for her, but she could only imagine how these latest, strange, semi-betraying events were affecting his mind.

"Yes, as a sort of partner in his differential diagnoses department," Cameron explained, trying to sound cheerful.

"His department…in New Jersey," Richard said, and Cameron didn't miss House's eye-rolling at her fiancé's slow comprehension.

"Yes. But I haven't decided if I'm taking it yet," she said quickly, "I was actually going to tell you about it tonight. He just asked me today." There was that strange look from House again – and then, gone. As Richard began to ask more questions about Princeton Plainsboro, Cameron once again felt herself on safe, solid ground. Part of her, however, could not escape from the amused and unusual silence of House, from the thoughtful way he gazed at her – from his analysis of her that she had promised herself would never occur again.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (3?)

**Characters:** Cameron/House, hints of Cuddy/Wilson

**Spoilers**: None

**Summary**: _She would always return._

_nothing is here to stay  
__everything has to begin and end  
__a ship in a bottle won't sail  
__all we can do is dream that the wind will blow us across the water_

"Baby" – **Dave Matthews**

After dinner, Richard cited the wine as his reason for retiring to bed early. When House asked a question so convoluted with sarcasm and double meanings about Richard's feelings concerning drinking the night before performing major, life-altering surgery, Cameron decided it was time to show him the guest room. Small, yet open and tasteful, the room abounded with signs of Cameron.

She hadn't said much to him throughout the evening. Richard had been with them the entire time. That man is having an intense love affair with his own voice, House had thought sullenly in the middle of Richard's diatribe on how botox was the underlying foundation of female empowerment. After looking at his watch, he had searched his pocket for his pills, carefully exacting one and swallowing it with the rest of the wine in his glass. Afterward, he had glanced up to see a look of mild disturbance on Richard's face. He could have sworn Cameron wore the hint of a smile, but it was gone in a flash.

He thought she'd have something to say to him when they stood alone in the guest bedroom, but she left wordlessly after giving instructions that were terse and to the point. He was starting to question the wisdom of showing up at her doorstep and asking to stay. Well, not so much the asking part. It was true he had needed a place to stay, but going to her place had the added bonus of allowing him to meet the Dick. And, he thought as he soundlessly opened his door, peeking into the hall, to snoop.

The door to Cameron and the Dick's room was closed as he passed it, and he heard nothing but silence within. The living room was spacious and very neat. House looked around for anything he could examine without disruption, without leaving too much evidence. He finally decided to start with some photo albums, propping his legs up on the coffee table and settling back into the plush sofa. He was only a few pages in when he heard the soft click of the bedroom door opening followed by gentle footsteps coming down the hall.

"I see you found the albums," she said softly, leaning against the doorway. He looked up at her with mock innocence on his face.

"Insomnia," he said with a shrug.

"I put them out before I went to bed to keep you from finding the _really_ good dirt." He waggled his eyebrows at her in curiosity. "You might find my shrine to you," she deadpanned. He rewarded her with a small smile. There was a weary sort of fatigue in her face, but she returned the smile all the same.

As she delicately tucked herself into the stuffed armchair next to the sofa, House took in her appearance, realizing that, in all the time he'd known her, he'd never seen her dressed so casually. She seemed, if it was possible, even _nicer_ in her t-shirt and pajama bottoms – there was a certain open quality to her tiredness that made House want to believe her. And _that_ annoyed him.

"So…Dick?" She yawned in response, shrugging her shoulders in pre-emptive defeat. "If you take the job, will he come with you?" This got her attention. She gazed down at the striped pattern on the armrest for a minute.

"I don't know," she said softly. Immediately a look of anger crossed her features and she followed with, "Maybe I wouldn't take the job without him."

"How long have you known him?"

"Two years. We got engaged six months ago. He put the ring in my wine glass at dinner." House made a face and rolled his eyes. "Hey," she protested, raising her eyebrows, "It was romantic!"

"It's stupid, overdone, and clichéd. Not to mention the stupidity of sticking a huge diamond like that into a glass of bubbly. No," House said decidedly, "It's completely the opposite of romantic."

"Oh, and I suppose your idea of romantic is what? Throwing a ring at a girl and hoping she picks it up and gets the idea?"

"No," he replied, clearly insulted. "Dinner at home – steak. Good engagement food. Maybe a little music. You ask her to dance. After a while you slip the ring on her finger. Quietly, deftly. Like it's the most natural thing in the world." Cameron's eyes were very large as she listened to House, and he rued the fact that he could no longer read her every emotion. "If you have to ask, it's not romantic." She rested her chin on her knees, gazing out the window for a while.

"He asked," she finally said, quietly. "In front of the whole restaurant. And then had them toast us when I said yes. Everyone clapped." She gazed at him intently now, looking straight into his eyes. "Strangers congratulated us. Strangers." A smile grazed her face. "He couldn't have done it better."

"Marriage is overrated anyway," he quipped.

"Says the man with the most experience," she returned. Cameron rose after a few more beats of comfortable, contemplative silence. She bid House goodnight, warning him away from her good silver, and he attempted to make his countenance pleasant-looking. He could tell she wanted to have a longer chat, and didn't quite know what to make of her self-restraint. But then she was gone.

He turned his attention back to the pictures in front of him, warily rubbing his leg. A bunch with Foreman, some with Chase – there were even a few of Wilson. The locations were unfamiliar to him; therefore most had been taken after she quit and moved. House paused at a picture of Foreman's very pregnant wife. Cameron stood to her left, holding up a ridiculous looking stuffed duck, same eternally plucky grin on her face. Richard – Dick – had his arm possessively around her, an equally amiable expression on his face.

As he continued to flip through the book, a strange feeling came over him. It was unsettling and, after a while, he put the book down, choosing to stare at the television instead. They had all come to visit her here, all of them except him. They'd all known where she lived, had been a part of her life A.H. – After House. She'd explained them to the Dick, incorporated them into her life. Had she ever asked about him? House regretted the question even as he felt himself burning for the answer. She, Chase, and Foreman had been like carefully crafted pottery – his creations, in part. To lose one completely before he'd been ready to finish it - that had been a blow to his ego and his belief that he really could get his way all the time.

Yet she'd been more than pottery. She had been the one to sort his mail because she knew he liked it when she did. The one to stroke his ego with her unflappable adoration. The "good" one to decadently, slowly, savoringly corrupt. He tried to imagine himself in one of the pictures. No good. He hated baby stuff, hated parties, hated….people. Still, it disturbed him. The family in the photos – he had created it, had hand picked it as his own and yet he always seemed to be the one missing. And though he felt in his gut that he would have it no other way, the lurking, nagging, fearful feeling refused to dissipate.

She woke up the following morning long before she heard Richard stir. Since she had never really found sleep, the ability to finally move around and make noise came as a greatly needed release. Pulling her robe around her snugly, she ventured out to the living room, hoping that House hadn't ended up spending the night on the uncomfortable couch. Satisfied with the vacant room, she then hesitantly approached the guest room. His demeanor the night before had surprised her. He almost seemed in a good mood when she caught him flipping through her pictures, and she had restrained herself from marveling at the rarity. There had been more that she'd wanted to say – with House there was always more – but she had also felt the weight of the past the night before, heavy even as she and House lightly bantered.

Still unsure about so many things, she was starting to admit to herself what she had known to be true the moment she saw him in the cemetery: she was glad to see him. And it was this happiness, this relief, this _need_ that was pissing her off. She bit down on her bottom lip as she attempted to soundlessly open the guest room door. Once she peered through the crack, however, she found her efforts to be in vain. The bed, showing faint traces of use, was awkwardly made, the extra sheets and towels neatly folded on top. A bright, yellow post it was stuck to the lampshade next to the bed. "One week," was all it said. "Bastard," she muttered under her breath, crumpling the note in a balled up hand. Now what, she wondered, wearily sinking onto the bed as she gazed out the window at the brightly dawning day.

Glancing at the clock, she picked up the phone on the nightstand and deftly dialed the ten-digit number from memory. The least he could have done was to warn her. A young-sounding nurse answered in a voice far too cheery for so early in the morning, "Dr. James Wilson!"

"Hi, yes, this is Dr. Alison Cameron. Is Dr. Wilson there by any chance?"

"Well yes Dr. Cameron! He certainly is! However he is not to be disturbed and I-" Cameron's name brought Wilson out of his office in a clumsy rush. He asked stammeringly if the call could please be forwarded to his office, then rushed back inside to pick up the line.

"Cameron, thank God. Is he with you?" Her jaw dropped open and she shook her head in disbelief. She began to pace.

"Then you knew he was coming?" The anger was evident in her voice.

"Not until he was already gone," assured Wilson. She rolled her eyes, remaining silent for a while.

"He's gone. I guess he must have left early this morning."

"What did he do?" At this she began to chuckle and quickly fell into a fit of full blown laughter. "Okay, I'm starting to get worried now," Wilson's fingers were white as he gripped the receiver.

"He offered me a position." Now it was Wilson's turn to gape.

"Where?"

"Where do you think?"

"Can he….even…do that? What kind of position?"

"Well, he wanted me to work under him, like his fellowship students."

"A job you've already occupied, if I remember correctly."

"That's what I said," she replied, picking at a nonexistent piece of lint on the bedspread, "So I came up with a counter-offer. Partner." There was silence on the end of the line for a time as he absorbed this.

"And his response?" She sigh deeply.

"What choice did he have? Wilson….do you know what this is about? Why me? Why now? Did something happen?"

"I have no idea. This is strange, even for him. I only know what I already told you, that Cuddy told him he had to hire a woman," he ran his hand through his hair in frustrated puzzlement. "Maybe he doesn't realize there are more women in the world who are doctors besides you." He waited a while longer before asking the question burning his tongue, "Are you…thinking about saying yes?"

"Wilson," Cameron immediately admonished, "He just sprung this on me yesterday. I mean, I haven't even seen him for three years and suddenly he's at David's grave-"

"Grave?"

"And he isn't acting like a complete asshole. Then he shows up at my apartment, asking to stay the night because the planes won't fly and his leg hurts him and-"

"Okay, I get it. Is there anything I can do?" She slowly smiled at his familiar chivalry.

"Well," she hesitated, "Could you maybe find out how legitimate this offer is? I doubt Cuddy knew he would seek me out and I'm pretty sure she has no idea I would offer myself the job of House's….well, you know."

"Sure thing," Wilson piped up, "Give me an hour and I'll see what I can find out." He paused for a moment, unsure of what he was about to say. "You know, it wouldn't be so bad having you back here. I bet you'll find the place hasn't changed much."

"I know," she sigh deeply, "That's what I'm afraid of."

Cuddy stepped gingerly off the elevator, ducking her head low so that her curly hair hid her face from the fluorescent lights above. A large, "Jackie O." pair of sunglasses concealed her eyes, lending an air of suspicion to her otherwise cheery (if not suggestive) apparel. She had barely unlocked the door to her office when she felt a warm presence to her left and the smell of strong coffee nefariously awakening her senses.

"Wilson," she almost moaned, "It is too early for you to be here. How are you possibly here at this time?" She tipped down her glasses and glanced around quickly, making sure they were out of anyone's earshot. "Don't you need sleep?"

"I believe med school shocked that need right out of me. That and living with House for a while," he grinned in his boyish way that lost its sense of annoyance once it became familiar. Any comment where House was the punch line was enough to elicit a small smile from the chief, even at the early hour.

"This better be for me," she said dryly, plucking the steaming cup from Wilson's hand. "Why _are_ you here so early? You and House pulling those inane, frat-boy pranks again?"

"No," he replied, entering her office and familiarly sinking onto one of the sofas. "Couldn't sleep." They regarded each other carefully and tentatively in silence for a long time. "Actually," he reluctantly began, "I do have a reason for being _here_. Dr. Cameron called me a short while ago-"

"God, she's awake too? Doesn't anyone sleep anymore?"

"House went up to Boston to see her. He offered her a job." That grabbed Cuddy's attention, causing her head to snap up.

"Where?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. Wilson remained silent, rubbing the back of his neck as he often did when perplexed. "When I said hire a woman…"

"Oh it gets better," Wilson said with a grimace. Cuddy slumped down into the chair behind her desk, resting her forehead on her hand. "Cameron made him a counter offer – partner." Cuddy sighed and walked over to the window.

"There's no money for that," she mused, "There's barely enough to hire a third fellow, which is what I instructed him to do." She shook her head, causing the curls to gently sway.

"Maybe there's something else you could offer her? She sounds like she just might consider coming back and….it might be good…for…all of us. Have you seen some of the cases she's been working on up there? A few of the most difficult she sent over here and I deftly brought them to House's attention, but she's had a pretty good track record with the unusual immunology cases."

"Did I tell you Hopkins offered me a teaching position?" she asked, spinning around on her heel.

"No," Wilson replied carefully, noting the abrupt subject shift, "Are you thinking of accepting?"

"I wasn't sure. I mean, some things might change for the better," she paused, pointedly looking at him. "But then I began to wonder who would take my place. Gordon is a complete moron. Anderson's just waiting to get his hands on the job so he can payback all the favors he owes. You would be so busy trying to make everyone get along…" She trailed off with a smile to which Wilson responded with a good-natured nod. "But say I hired Cameron as, oh, I don't know, head of Immunology. Set her up with a staff, let her do her 'House' cases. In a month or two…" She trailed off, eventually looking to Wilson for a response. As what she was saying dawned on him, his eyes widened and he began to rub the back of his neck again.

"Oh boy," he said under his breath.

"You breathe one word of this to him and I'll kill you myself," she added.

"What if Cameron doesn't want the job?"

"Wilson, please. You have no idea what it's like to be a woman in this profession. You really think she left her fellowship, left this hospital, then worked her tail off to get as far as she's gotten without having something like this in mind as her final goal?" Cuddy let her fingers gently graze the expansive desk in front of her. "This could end up being the best possible solution. I'd be handing it off to another female – something this patriarchic tomb could use – and she can also handle House –"

"Can she?"

"Well enough," Cuddy shrugged, "She's familiar with the hospital, yet she's been gone long enough that she's not in anyone's pocket. She's still a little young, but then so was I." Cuddy sat down primly at her desk, now satisfied with herself. "Goes behind my back. Well, he'll see what happens now." Wilson's forehead creased as he rose from the sofa.

"So that's what you want me to go to her with? Head of immunology? Do you want me to mention…the other thing?" Cuddy mused for a moment.

"Yes. It's only fair to let her know what she's signing on for if she's going to make the move back here. Who knows, it might act as an extra incentive." Wilson nodded reluctantly as he headed for the door. Once back in his own office he picked up the phone and haltingly dialed Cameron's number.

"Hey," he said when she answered, "It's me. So I talked to Cuddy and she seems to have a counter-offer of her own that I think you'll want to hear…"

"I have good news," Cameron's voice echoed off the tiled kitchen walls. "I'm going to be Chief of Medicine." She wrinkled her nose at her tone, shaking the tension out of her shoulders. Turning her chin up, she repeated the phrase, changing her pacing and stressing.

Richard was due home any minute, and she had no idea how she was going to tell him about the offer, let alone her decision. Her decision – the very fact that she'd made such an important one on her own had been troubling and mystifying her all day. It frightened her as well. A part of her had known the minute she saw House – had _known_ that she would go back. But to be Chief….she wasn't entirely sure, but she was willing to try.

"Hey Ali," Richard's voice startled her out of her contemplations.

"Hi," she sighed, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "How was your day?" He gave her a nod and a smile, saying nothing. "Spaghetti okay?" He nodded again, shuffling off toward their bedroom. She followed him, pausing at the door to muster up her courage and wits.

Before she could say anything, however, he blurted, "Are you the one that slept with him?" She was floored. There could be only one _"him."_ What was going on?

"Excuse me?"

"Years ago. There was once a rumor that he slept with one of his interns. I always thought it amusing, another element of his professional degradation, but now that I…," he trailed off.

"And you think it was me," she said softly, wondering how it was possible that her life could change in the briefest of seconds, how House could exert his power continuously and unknowingly. He looked away from her then, and she felt the smallest trace of pity extend throughout her senses. "It wasn't." She shrugged.

"Why didn't you tell me?" As his question reverberated against the cerulean walls they'd painted together, it was her turn to shrug. "And the job?" She looked up at him imploringly.

"I called them to find out if the offer was legitimate," she said slowly, "And it turns out it wasn't." Before all the tension had left Richard's shoulders in a whooshing sigh, she continued, "They actually offered me something much different. Head of Immunology – with the promise of Chief within the year." Richard's expression was beyond stunned.

"Chief?" he said, as though feeling the fit of the word in his mouth. His gaze was suddenly intense and unwavering. "You're going to take it," he breathed in mild surprise. She made no motion, but her eyes reluctantly betrayed the truth. "Ali, I'm worried," he said, shaking his head. "The way you were last night with him – Ali, I don't know who that was. And I'm going to be marrying you. And I just can't help but wonder-"

"I love you," she said forcefully, briskly stepping in front of him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "I. Love. You." She looked at him earnestly. In that moment she was sure that she did love him. But also in that moment she knew where it was that she needed to be.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (4/?)

**Characters:** Cameron/House

**Spoilers**: None

**Summary**: _She would always return._

_And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration._

Martin Chuzzlewit – **Charles Dickens**

The hallways were as bright and shiny as she remembered. Clinical sterility really could give time a run for its money, she thought. For a moment she was on her way to the office to start the coffee. Bright-eyed, eager, hopeful. She wondered if she had changed. She wondered how much. As she neared the glass doors that had served as her threshold to pain and pleasure for three years she hung back slightly, knowing that what she saw would pull her out of her reminiscing. She could not, however, ignore the sounds of the cat and mouse game known fondly as "differential diagnosis with Dr. House" that spilled out from the slightly open door.

Carefully remaining out of view, Cameron scanned the whiteboard – still the same! – as she attempted to make sense of what she was hearing. House was attempting to order his newest charges to dispense a risky medication to a sick boy. Cameron wondered again at Princeton-Plainsboro's ability to circumvent the otherwise inevitability of evolution over time. Or perhaps that unique ability was better attributed to House himself. Cameron watched history repeat itself as the two younger men seated in front of House protested the treatment, citing the mother's unwillingness to consent.

"Tell her what this will do to her son's skin. Ask her if she wants a son that looks like swiss cheese," House insisted.

Before any of the boys could reply, Cameron leaned against the doorframe and said, "You better do like he says or he's just bound to find some illegal way to do it." The two doctors looked up at her in confusion – one actually looked pissed at her interruption. House, on the other hand, looked calm and sedate – as though he had been expecting her that very moment.

"There's no reason to subject the patient to a risky treatment when there are clear signs that it's lupus," the pissed guy fired out, deciding to ignore Cameron.

"Hey," House boomed, "that's _her_ line." Cameron pursed her lips but remained quiet. "Would someone like to inform Dr. Doolittle here why little Johnny-"

"Jason," the other doctor said. House continued on, ignoring the interruption, and Cameron, despite herself, felt a smile tugging at her lips.

"- cannot possibly have lupus?" He waited a beat and then looked over at Cameron expectantly. She hugged her arms close to her body as she felt her skin prickle. The same and yet not the same.

"If it was lupus we would have seen some improvement by now," the quieter doctor spoke up.

"Also her line," House sighed, settling down in a chair and swinging his cane. The room filled with the pressure of silence, causing pissed guy to pace.

"So what do we do?" he asked.

"You convince the mother to let us try this treatment and then we wait."

"We _wait_?" he asked with incredulous hostility, but House had already retreated to his office, inviting Cameron in with a nod of his head. She awkwardly faced the two doctors in what had once been her territory, her office.

"Hi, I'm Alison Cameron. I've just been hired on as head of immunology."

"Andrew Clark," the quiet one said, holding out a hand.

As she shook it the pissed one regarded her suspiciously saying, "Patrick Miller – you know House?"

"I wouldn't quite say that," she said, smiling ruefully. "I was a fellow here for a time though. It was nice meeting you both." She deftly slipped into House's office to avoid further questions, yet soon realized she'd merely traded one uncomfortable situation for another.

He stood at the window brooding, as she'd seen him do so many times in the past. He gently and soundlessly drummed his cane on the floor as he gazed through the half-open blinds without focusing. She had told Wilson to let him know that she was coming, yet she knew she was merely postponing his anger rather than avoiding it. It had been stupid of her to think that she could saunter back into his office, his space, and hope for any sort of amends. Seeing the hospital again had helped her remember her limited knowledge of House the man. She realized anew the great cost House had endured merely to track her down and ask her back, and found herself wondering – not for the first time – how she felt about his altering the course of her life yet again.

"I know you're angry," she said bluntly, bracing herself for his sharp sarcasm.

House did not disappoint, replying in a chipper voice, "Angry? Now why would I be angry?" Feeling uncomfortable occupying any of the seats that reminded her of past confrontations in that very office, she opted to lean against the side of House's desk – a move that situated her closer than he'd anticipated. "Just because _I_ came to _you_, offered you a job, and then had you go behind my back to _Cuddy_…doesn't mean I'm angry. Now, having Wilson be the one to confess your sly deed-"

"House, I didn't-"

"Ah, ah, ah!" he swung his cane back to the ground and took a step towards her. Both stilled at their proximity. She had thought he was the same when they were in Boston, but now, seeing him in the place she knew him best, he looked…tired. "The deal was for you to work for _me_," he said, his penetrating eyes wide and unforgiving. She held his gaze for a moment, then lowered her head, shaking it and causing her curls to oscillate gently.

"Did you really think I was going to come back here to be your fellow? _Again?_" she said in an exasperated tone, her brow wrinkled in weariness. Her eyes searched his and he quickly broke contact. "I know you haven't forgiven me for leaving, I know you think it was brash and – I don't know. But that's in the past. I moved on, both personally...and professionally." He looked at her again, his gaze non-committal. He had become bored with the conversation.

"Look," she said hotly, taking a step towards him and pushing her shoulders back, "You may not like how I do things. You may think that I'm overly emotional and too hesitant – you're right. But I'm a damn good doctor. You know that, or you wouldn't have even considered asking me back. Cuddy knows it too, which is why she offered me this position. You started this, and now you're just going to have to live with it." She quickly walked to the door and was about to leave when his voice drew her back.

"That's all fascinating, really. But it still doesn't explain why you actually _came_ back," he shot out at her retreating form. She paused for a moment and a look of pain that he couldn't see crossed her face. Lifting her head again, however, she continued on, disappearing down the corridor.

Later that day, Cameron found herself lost in thought in the middle of the lunch line. A cup of yogurt in one hand and a salad in the other, her gaze was unfocused as she inched her way toward the cashier. She walked away without thinking to take her change, and remained firmly in her reverie until the shouting of a familiar voice caused her to start. She looked to the left to see Wilson seated alone at a small table, a look of concern on his face. Smiling brightly, she walked over to him.

"Are you alright?" he asked in his classically panicked way.

"Yes, why?" she responded.

"You didn't seem to notice I was…you want to have lunch with me?" he motioned to the empty seat opposite him. She brightened at first, then looked around discreetly. "He won't be here," Wilson said, noting her movements. She sheepishly sank into the chair, immediately busying her nervous hands by opening her salad.

"How do you know?"

"Because Cuddy has him chained in the clinic – punishment for attempting to hire you without her knowledge." Cameron glanced up at him with worried, guilt-ridden eyes. "She's glad you're here," Wilson said quickly, feeling as though he had stepped into quicksand, "We all are. Look…it's…any reason is good enough for her to torture him, okay? I shouldn't have said anything." She nodded and smiled good-naturedly, unconsciously stirring her salad.

Wilson scrutinized his colleague as she stared into her salad. She looked…different. The fact that he couldn't describe how was really beginning to frustrate him. They'd kept in touch over the years, more so by e-mail than phone, yet he felt that he possessed an intrinsic knowledge of her state of being that simply wasn't helping him decode what he was now seeing. He and Cameron were by no means "best friends" as he and House were; however, she had assumed a very unique place in his life, as much for being herself as for her connections to House. Wilson didn't have many female friends that he hadn't either slept with or wanted to sleep with at some point. While he would be the first to point out that Cameron was beautiful, he'd strangely never gone there with her, even in his mind.

He'd been protective of her after she had first left, worriedly hiding any traces of their correspondence from House. He had given her references when she applied for new positions and served as a consult on some of her tougher cases. He told himself he was doing it as much for her as he was for House, but, after a while, he realized he was actually angry at House. House wanted everything about his life to remain the same – an extended personal hell for all eternity. Cameron had been a light, a way out of the darkness, and instead of grasping at it, House had turned away.

The past few years had changed Cameron in ways Wilson was just beginning to realize after seeing her again in person. She hadn't lost too many of her emotional tendencies, however her demeanor had become more reserved, just a bit more distant. Though still cautious, she was capable of making decisions that seemed outrageous to her colleagues and carrying them out in a calm, steady manor.

Her tendency to hunt down strange, unsolvable cases had grown so slowly and steadily over the years that he hadn't realized what a knack she was developing. The first time she sent a seemingly impossible case his way in an effort to surreptitiously get it to House, Wilson was apprehensive. He began to feel guilty for hiding his correspondence with Cameron, fearful that House would find out his well-kept secret. However, it seemed to him that House never suspected a thing. In fact, each case he passed on began to seem easier than the last. It was only in the moment he realized House had gone to see her that he began to have doubts.

"I'm sorry you were the one to tell him about Cuddy's offer," she said suddenly, looking up at him with contrite eyes.

He shrugged and replied, "It was actually kind of exhilarating. I mean, he's lucky you came back at all. I told him about the other offers you've been getting recently. Of course, you know him – it probably went in one ear and out the other." He waited for her to say more, and when she didn't he asked, "So, have you gotten a place here yet? Or are you going to wait for Richard to come down to pick it out? Or…"

"I was actually going to wait a bit and see how this all pans out," she grinned, "But for right now I've leased an apartment – not too far."

Wilson waited in the excruciating silence before gently prodding, "And Richard? Has he decided to make the move?"

"He's – we're – we haven't really…he can't just leave his patients right now, so we're going to wait and see what happens. Maybe in a few months, depending on how I'm doing, how he's doing…"

"But things are…"

"Things are good. They're great. I love Richard, you know, we're very…happy," she said rather calmly. "That's why I don't mind this whole arrangement. With David it was so…fast and powerful and…almost out of my control, in a way. And while it was amazing it was also tiring. So, happy is…it's a relief, you know? Happy." She nodded a little, as if to put the final punctuation on her argument. Wilson nodded too, understanding. However an old, familiar worry had resurfaced in the pit of his stomach and he wondered how many more days of peace he would have with Cameron and House in the same building.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (5/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_I'll be counting up my demons  
__Hoping everything's not lost_

"Everything's Not Lost" – **Coldplay**

"Janie, I need that file right now," Cameron called out from her office for the third time.

"We're still looking for it Dr. Cameron," came the nervous, high-pitched reply.

It had been nearly a month since Cameron started back at Princeton Plainsboro and she was having the kind of day that made her question her decision to do so. As Cuddy had promised, Cameron was given leave to hire two fellows for her department that would specifically work with her on various mysterious immunology cases. Janie Croup and Laura Stack had reminded Cameron a little of herself as a beginning fellow, but each possessed a drive that reminded her more of Foreman and Chase's attempts to one-up each other.

"I don't understand," she said, walking into the conference room adjoining her office. "It was here this morning. I saw it. I mean, I put it here – I found it. I ordered a CT scan. How does a file just disappear?"

Janie and Laura apprehensively watched their new boss as they continued to sift through various piles of paper on their desks. The only thing the young doctors had known about their potential superior before being hired was that she had worked under the infamous Dr. House. Though Cameron appeared to them to be compassionate yet firm, they were each waiting for the day when the other shoe would drop, when Dr. Cameron would order them to badger a patient or perform illegal tests.

The two women had not had much contact with Dr. House since being hired. Any cases that Dr. Cameron had consulted on she kept to herself, choosing instead to busy her own staff strictly with mysterious immunology cases. Unbeknownst to Cameron, however, they had become friends with the two fellows in House's department. The foursome alternated between showing off for each other and dissecting the strange relationship between their superiors. Rumors ran, elaborate and rampant, throughout both the hospital and the larger medical community, and the four doctors looked upon the mystery of Dr. Cameron and Dr. House as their own differential diagnosis quandary.

"I've got it!" Cameron called out triumphantly, holding up her hand to stop the search.

"You found the file?" Laura asked in relief.

"No, but patients, unlike files, do not disappear. We'll just start a new file until we can find the old one. Laura, why don't you call and see if she's had the CT yet." Cameron triumphantly returned to her office only to have an uneasy Laura tap at the door a few minutes later.

"What's wrong? Has she had the scan?" Cameron's forehead crinkled.

"Not exactly," she replied. "She's scheduled for one, only you're no longer listed as her doctor."

"What?" Cameron slowly shook her head in disbelief. "Well who-" She paused abruptly, her face slackening. She rose from her chair, hands balled into tight fists at her side. "Damn it."

"Okay, so we start her on antibiotics in case Clark is right, and we give her steroids in case Miller is right," House said, looking slightly bored. His legs were propped up on the table in the conference room as he sat across from his eager fellows. The white board stood at attention, filled with the results of the past thirty minutes of brainstorming.

"I think Dr. Cameron was working on ruling out some immune diseases first," Miller pointed out as Clark was heading toward the door.

"Do you see Dr. Cameron here?" House retorted, mockingly looking around the room.

"You bastard!" Cameron's voice was uncharacteristically loud as she burst into the room.

Purposely refusing to regard her, House turned toward Miller saying, "Figuratively speaking."

"You stole my patient!"

"Now run along my little healers," House said dismissively, continuing to ignore Cameron. He swung his legs off the table and began to make his way over to his office.

"What should I do about the CT scan?" Miller unwisely asked despite Clark's motions that they should leave. House shot the doctor an icy glare.

"Are you referring to the CT scan that I ordered for my patient?" Cameron continued, refusing to be ignored. She walked over to the white board, quickly scanning it. "And what the hell is this? Did you even read the patient history?"

House finally turned in her direction, his face blank. "That time of the month?" She shot daggers at him through her blue eyes. Clark took the moment of silence to grab the back of Miller's lab coat, pulling him out of the room and down the hallway.

Cameron walked up to House, preventing him from leaving the conference room. "You stole my patient," she said again, her voice eerily quiet yet just as intense as when she'd been yelling.

"Yeah," House said, leaning forward expectantly with an annoyingly bored look on his face.

"You're pissed at me, I get that. But I did not come all the way back here to waste my time and abilities. You've used me on maybe two cases since I've been back, and both were random, generic consults that even Wilson could have given you. You cut me out of your cases, fine. But you stay the hell away from mine." She shot him one more glare before turning to leave.

"I found an interesting case that I thought needed my immediate attention. 'Your' patient, 'my' patient. Really Dr. Cameron, this competitive streak in you is most disturbing."

"You can't just take something because you want it," she turned back towards him, defiantly pushing out her chin. He shrugged his shoulders as he mocked her by wincing thoughtfully in response. "I don't work for you. You don't control me anymore."

"Mmm. Are you suggesting I controlled you in the past? Because I'm forgetting now – when was the part where I told you to leave?" For the first time he saw something besides anger flash in her eyes, yet she still refused to look away and he was mildly surprised. As quickly as the "something" had appeared, she masked it – another new skill, he noted.

"You don't have to tell people to leave," she said softly, heavily, as Wilson walked into the room in trepidation. "They just seem to do that on their own." Wilson's eyes were round with concern as he witnessed the strained tension between House and Cameron. At her words, House had set his jaw, steeling fixing his gaze on her forehead. He seemed calm and in control, but Wilson noticed his thumb silently digging into the handle of his cane.

After her unexpected remark, Cameron took a sudden breath, her eyes momentarily betraying her regret. She hadn't quite mastered the mask as well as House. Not knowing what else to do, she turned on her heel and charged out of the office. Despite her hash words, Wilson sensed that House was disappointed at her departure. He looked at his old friend in silence for a moment, knowing that House would make the first move when he was ready.

"What's wrong?" House asked, rolling his eyes as he went into his office, "Did I steal your patient too?"

"I heard shouting."

"So?"

"From someone other than you." After hesitating a moment, Wilson took the seat in front of House's desk, comfortably settling back. House continued to pace behind his desk, randomly bouncing his cane off the floor. After a few more minutes Wilson said wearily, "You stole her patient?"

House snorted. "You going to give me a time out? This isn't grade school."

"No," Wilson nodded, "Antagonizing the pretty girl because she wouldn't go to the dance with you seems a bit more high school."

"Is it 'bring your repressed memories to work' day again?" House shot back.

Ignoring his remark, Wilson continued, "Look, you're the one that asked her back. I still don't know why. I also don't know why the hell she's actually here. I do know that you've been ignoring her for a month now simply because you're angry that you didn't get your way." House gave him a look that said 'enough,' but Wilson would have none of it.

"Are you ever going to actually tell me why you went after her? Or is this just another 'put your blind trust in me' moment, all will be revealed in time?" House responded by turning on his music. Loud. "Fine," Wilson's voice strained over the music, "I just wish I would have told her to never come. _What_ was I thinking?"

Though he made no body movement, House's eyes thoughtfully focused on Wilson's retreating figure. So Cameron had consulted with Wilson before coming – and he had actually signed off on the move. His interest was piqued by both of these facts and he made a mental note to be on the lookout for further information.

He closed his eyes, letting the music wash over him as he replayed his encounter with Cameron. The case had legitimately caught his attention. Granted, it came via his overhearing one of the underlings recounting a lunch conversation with one of Cameron's hot new acquisitions – but an interesting case was an interesting case. The fact that his "pilfering" would piss the hell out of Cameron was simply a bonus.

House had decided that, by not taking the position he had offered, she would have to earn her way back into the department. She was clearly Cuddy's hopeful protégé now, and he would need to change that before rewarding her with a return to…well…to the "weird" way things had once been. Wilson had been right – he'd fought her attempts to weigh in on cases for about a month. Stealing her patient had been another significant reminder that she would play for his team or no team. And she had reacted in typical Cameron fashion. A small smile tugged at the corners of House's mouth. Predictable.

"House stole my patient!" Cameron said emphatically, causing Cuddy's dark head to snap up in surprise. She had bypassed Cuddy's newest secretary and his protestations, barging into the room unannounced and unthinking. She'd been in a blind rage since leaving House's office, rage mixed with embarrassment. She hated that House's fellows had seen her so uncontrolled, so irate. She especially hated that Wilson had seen her act so petty and childish. So, taking her show on the road, she'd marched over to Cuddy's office hoping and desperately looking for some semblance of control.

She had failed.

"I'll have to call you back," Cuddy said into the phone with irritation in her voice. She pointedly glared at Cameron who was now pacing back on forth, her face oddly contorted with a mixture of embarrassment, sorrow, and weariness.

Cuddy's secretary smugly stood at the door and said, "Dr. Cuddy, I tried to tell her you were not to be disturbed but –"

"I'm sorry," Cameron fired off in his direction, low and pleading. Giving her a sour look, the man rolled his eyes and retreated, mumbling something incoherently. Cameron paused as she thought she heard the name House, but was swiftly reminded of her present situation by Cuddy's loud sigh as she rose from her chair.

"Dr. Cameron…?" Cuddy trailed off, bewildered. She'd seen behavior like this very few times from the young immunologist, and only in the most serious of circumstances.

Cameron threw herself rather ungracefully onto the couch with a sigh, burying her head in her hands. "I'm sorry, really, I – I don't know what's wrong with me." She glanced up at a very lost-looking Cuddy and continued, "I'm not like this. Ask anyone at Memorial. I – I've never acted like this. And I've been angry, believe me. Memorial has its fair share of idiot doctors. But I have not acted like this since –" She stopped abruptly, unable to meet Cuddy's eyes.

"Since five years ago?" Cuddy helpfully supplied. She gave Cameron a moment to collect herself before continuing on. "Look, I know he's an ass, but he also happens to be a genius. The head of any hospital will tell you the same story – you just can't get away from it. And…if you hope to become head someday…you're going to have to learn to deal with it better than this."

"Easier said than done." Cameron looked at Cuddy thoughtfully. "Have any suggestions?"

"Oh please," she answered, rolling her eyes, "You managed to work with him before."

"Yeah, but I was working under him – I had no power." Cuddy looked at Cameron with exaggerated skepticism. "Fine. It just _feels_ different."

"Well, it's not. He's not different, the hospital isn't all that different – you're not different." Cameron's eyes widened, an incensed protestation on her lips. "What I mean is you're a better doctor now, of course, but you're still…you."

At that Cameron finally became silent. Was Cuddy right, she mused, had she really not changed at all? One of the philosophies that had forced her to come back was the notion that this time would be different, that she had changed and could start in the same place again, expecting a different outcome. She knew House hadn't changed, but if she too was the same…then it would only be a matter of time before her world crumbled around her, leaving her with a longing sense of guilt and the all-knowing certitude of House. And that could not – would not – happen.

"I'm sorry again for barging in here," Cameron said as she moved to the door. "And you're right; I've been here before and I'll find a way." Cuddy nodded thoughtfully as she watched the still-young immunologist retreat. She punched a familiar number into the phone on her desk and sighed wearily when someone picked up on the other end.

"I'm sorry – which one of us though it would be okay to hire Cameron again? 'Cause that's who's buying round number one tonight."

House stared at the screen in front of him with a solitary focus that enveloped the room. He was missing something. He was missing something and, damn it, it was her fault. She'd had the desired reaction, had reconfirmed that, although he never could decipher her in the past, he was still able to predict her actions. Most of her actions. For example, why hadn't she come back after storming to Cuddy? A month of anger had suddenly boiled to the surface and she had yet to come back for round two.

Perhaps Cuddy had talked her out of it. He stopped that part of his brain for moment as his eyes instinctively alerted him to something on the screen. As he reached out to draw the set closer, a fly buzzed out at him. "Damn," he cursed softly. Sure, Cuddy might have talked her out of having a shout-fest, but she certainly wouldn't have discouraged Cameron from being a thorn in his side. So where the hell was she?

As if on cue, he heard the aged 'whoosh' sound of the door along with the soft clap of heels on carpet. A smug smile more than tugged at his lips – a measured indulgence allowed only because he faced away from the door. Finally, the show could continue. Perhaps he'd even get closer to why she'd returned.

"Is that her chest CT?" Her voice was soft, low – calm. Ah, so that's how she would try to play it. Too bad she didn't realize he'd been a step ahead of her for three years. He gave a single nod without removing his eyes from the screen.

"Cuddy take you out for an ice cream cone?" The lilt of his voice was satisfyingly taunting. She remained silent and a sudden spark of frustration was born. He began to twirl his cane absently.

"A dozen different doctors have looked at her chest CT, including your staff. None of them found anything. So the question is, why are you looking at it?" she continued on as though she were taking part in a completely different conversation. He snorted softly, but there was a sense of pleading under his stubbornness for her to begin their game already in the way he knew she would. This was what they did, what they were. "You don't trust your staff?" Her mock surprise was his only answer.

His chuckle was low and sarcastic. "There's something there," he said absently as a way to keep her occupied while he mentally retreated and set up for a different attack. No, he could not quite predict her _every_ move. Not yet. Before he'd scouted out a new camp, however, her breath was on the back of his neck and her hair dangling so close to his face and her smell – God her smell. He'd been trying to get a whiff of it since the cemetery to no avail. He felt the weight of his eyes, dark and full, as he sharply turned them on her.

She was delicately leaning over his shoulder, her fragile arm pointing to the backlit photo. She spoke words that became stuck in the processing center of his brain as he fought against being surprised.

"House, did you hear me? I think I saw something there," she repeated, looking as though she had no idea what she was doing to him. Then, just like that, she was gone. No more breath, no more scent.

"Just a fly," he mumbled, quickly moving to shut off the light.

"No," she said insistently, grabbing his hand that hovered over the switch. He immediately relinquished control, recoiling a little as though her touch burned his skin. Yet she didn't notice, busy as she was swatting at the image. She was focused, determined. For the first time House wondered if perhaps he'd been wrong - _underestimating_ her game plan. "There," she said again, her face almost next to the board. The glow cast her features in an eerie light that made her look translucent and cold. House was captivated, yet found himself succumbing to the case once again.

"Where," he muttered, and stood next to her, invading her personal space in a way that moments ago would have stopped time, but that now took a backseat to their search. And then he saw it: a smallish, dark spot that looked different from the rest. Solution. Release. And the immediate, haunting echo of pain in his leg.

So intently was he gazing at the spot that he didn't notice her departure until, from the doorway, he heard a gentle, "Night House." He turned his head only slightly, gazing at the vacant spot to his right she had just filled. He was relieved that the moment was his once again; despondent that it had ever been anything but.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (6/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return.  
_**a/n**: I'm not ashamed to say I totally stole this medical plot from NYT. Should I be ashamed? Hmm. Also – thank you for the comments! I'm really glad you like it. Makes beating my head against a wall somehow seem more…worthwhile?

_I need your grace  
__To remind me  
__To find my own  
_"Chasing Cars" – **Snow Patrol**

Sunlight eagerly filtered through the blinds and into the conference room as though it knew that its presence was equally needed as it was despised. Cameron perched half-precariously, half-languidly in the corner, scanning the contraband file known formerly as her case. As her mind rationally worked through causes and effects, her body prepared for _his_ arrival.

She hadn't intended on confronting him the night before – she simply couldn't stop herself from seeing what he was doing with the scans. She also didn't know whether to be happy in her self control or ashamed of her need to know.

As much as she wanted to work with House again, to be let back into his world of mind games and watery ethics, she drew power from her nearly constant mental reminders that she was no longer under his thumb. Gregory House had no official control over her. She knew, though, that the operative word in that statement was "official," and she was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the irrational mumblings of her mind that occasionally gave her a thrill by reminding her that all interactions from this point forward between her and House were consensual. Oh, how she hated those voices.

She heard the door to his office open, heard him drop his bag carelessly on his chair. He shuffled through the conference room, not bothering to turn on a light as he grudgingly turned on the coffee maker. He gazed sourly at the sunrise out the window for a while, and then his gaze shifted languidly to Cameron. If he was shocked or surprised in the least he didn't let on – another thing that had always frustrated her to no end. Anger, happiness – these were reactions she could deal with. But no reaction at all?

"Tired of your office already? Never did like the view from that side of the building." He turned his attention back to the coffee and she longed to slap him. To make him answer her ever burning question of "why." To make him answer anything.

"I thought I could help with the case." A beat of silence as he carefully selected a mug from the cabinet.

"You thought wrong." She'd been expecting this – counting on it even. The door to the conference room swung open as Clark and Miller jaunted in, laughing no doubt at some tale of the previous night's exploits. House began to regard them woefully, but caught Cameron's knowing smirk and stopped. So it wasn't that he didn't _need_ her help, she thought. She'd suspected as much, but one could never be too sure with House.

"Should we leave?" a more seriously mannered Miller cautiously queried.

"Actually, Dr. Cameron was just leaving. I'm sure she has many sick immunology patients to attend to." His eyes were full of annoyance and pain, as per usual, but she noticed something else – something she hadn't seen in a long time, wasn't sure she'd ever seen directed at her. Mirth.

His eyes quickly darted to the door as Janie and Laura entered. Their smiles were hopeful and full of nervous energy. Today was the day they would consult with the great Dr. House. Cameron forced herself not to wince at their idealism and excitement. She felt his eyes return to her, though, and sensed that he shared her thought.

"I didn't know we were having a slumber party today! Too bad my good jammies are at the cleaners." His tone was sarcastic, mocking, biting – the essence of House – and the girls unconsciously stepped back against the door.

"Well, Dr. House," Cameron refused to be deterred, "If you don't want a consult, then we'll just sit in. I'm sure my interns would benefit much from watching the brilliant Dr. House in action."

"Don't much like being observed. Stage fright." House shrugged helplessly and moved to hold the door open for the two newly bewildered women.

"Wanna check with Cuddy on that one?" She smiled sweetly at the taste of her small victory. She was nowhere near close to winning the war, but maintaining her own against House? A worthy battle. He chuckled sardonically, conceding this one to her, no doubt already preparing for round two.

"Fine. Girls, sit back and watch." He turned to his fellows but eyed Cameron as he said, "Let's show the feeble minded weaker sex how the real men solve the cases." He was having fun now, she could tell, and she relished the small power of amusement she held over him.

Clark and Miller cautiously took seats on one side of the table while Janie and Laura sat opposite them. All four showed varying signs of confusion and captivation at the antics of their respective bosses. Cameron watched House retrieve his cup of coffee while she expectantly sat in a chair nearest the white board.

"Okay, Patient 'Whatsherface.' Vanna, file." He snatched the folder from Cameron, flipping it open dramatically. "And the survey says…why the hell hasn't she had a biopsy?"

"Her white cell count wasn't down," Cameron replied.

"Well gee, let's see…spot on her lung, cough, breathing problems – no, you're right. Sounds nothing like cancer."

"I looked again this morning at her chart. Problems with her fluid-producing glands, problems with her lungs…she's been through so much that I thought it might be a good idea to check out some immunological causes before jumping to cancer." House pursed his lips and bowed his head, and she hoped that meant he was actually listening. Moving toward his board, he stopped suddenly and began scanning the room.

"What are you looking for?" Miller asked, confused as to whether or not this was part of House's diagnosing antics.

"Where are my markers?"

"You seem to have misplaced them." House slowly looked over at Cameron, a twisted hint of surprise hiding behind pursed lips. "I have some," she offered sweetly, reaching into the pocked of her lab coat, "But I'm not allowed to touch the board, am I? Oh, or speak either, right?"

He sank into a chair across from her, refusing to break eye contact. She felt her resistance wavering under his gaze. It reminded her of every time they'd been close to having a "moment." It made her angry. "Gland problems. Go," he tersely commanded, breaking the tension and preventing her anger from boiling.

"A link between the lungs and the nervous system is highly unlikely," Clark piped up. He was the more handsome of House's fellows, yet Cameron also sensed that he was the smarmier one. "I think we should just do the biopsy so we can all go home."

"Excellent. Vanna, write that one down," House said with false brightness.

"Hang on a minute," Cameron said slowly, "Unlikely yes, but not impossible –"

"Okay, let's test her for all 'unlikely but not impossible' diseases. That way we can help her waste what little time she has left. Of course, we'll save the cancer test for last because we wouldn't want to have to give her _bad_ news, now would we?" House cut her off. The younger doctors seemed paralyzed and everyone barely noticed Wilson slipping into the room.

"What about Sjogren's syndrome?" Laura ventured. Cameron breathed a small sigh of satisfied triumph. This was what she'd been hoping for.

"What?! Her symptoms are classic for cancer. There's nothing about them to suggest some crazy immune disease. She might as well have AIDS," Clark shot out.

"Painful eyes or dry mouth," Miller piped up. Cameron suppressed another grin. "They're symptoms."

"Dry mouth is one of her symptoms," Laura added.

"What about scleroderma?" Janie said with burgeoning confidence.

"Okay," Clark said animatedly, looking at House for back up, "She has no symptoms. We would be seeing signs in her other organs."

"They could appear later," Miller shrugged.

"Well, while we're waiting to see if it's one hundred and one of our favorite rare diseases, Clark is going to go do a biopsy," House replied. Wilson sighed. Cameron glanced over, catching his eye thoughtfully. There was silence in the room and she briefly considered giving in – just for a moment. Then she realized that while she would have three years ago, she couldn't now. Not if she had any hope of making this work.

"What if it's Lupus?" she baited him.

"What if it's polio?"

"What if it's," she paused, taking a deep breath and catching his eye, "sarcoidosis?"

"Sure, let's wait around and tell ghost stories while you test her. You do realize that if you're wrong you're wasting time she doesn't have." She narrowed her eyes at him. He was purposely making this especially difficult and she longed to know why. He had summoned her back, he had shown, finally, after all these years, that he wanted her - didn't matter in what way, didn't matter how little.

Every day she was feeling more and more the fool. She refused to believe that he would ask her here only to amuse himself at her expense. She'd been hoping for change – if not in him, then in the way he saw her or at least in the way he treated her. What frustrated her most, however, was his complete certainty that she hadn't changed at all. She supposed that she had confirmed that a little by coming back in the first place, but it was still a bit surprising. House prided himself on his ability to read people. She could see changes in herself. Friends and colleagues had noted changes. So what was House seeing that everyone else didn't?

"So go do the biopsy," House snipped at Clark, who jumped a little and stood up abruptly.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do that," Cameron said, rising slowly just as Clark had reached the door. He paused in agonizing indecision.

"Not your patient," House chirped.

"This is true, but I can't let you send him, because the patient isn't in her room."

"I'm confused. Did she walk out of here. Have we cured her merely by thinking about it? And people say I'm not God." Wilson rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to lower his head into his hands.

Cameron took a deep breath and steadied herself. "She's currently being pumped full of prednisone." House allowed the slightest bit of his taken aback-ness to show, and seeing gave Cameron a momentary thrill. Wilson, however, had closed his eyes and was now covering them with his right hand.

"Come again?" He leaned his head forward, ear cocked up.

"Other part of the file," she said innocently, holding up a sheaf of papers.

He snatched the paper from her grasp, skimming it for a moment before narrowing his eyes and saying, "You did a biopsy."

"Well of course, I'm not an idiot," she said. "It seemed clear, but I wasn't convinced. So, I put it under the microscope and…"

"Granulomas," House muttered, continuing to read the paper.

"You'd only see that if it were sarcoidosis or TB," Laura said thoughtfully, "How did you know it wasn't TB?"

"She didn't have any of the usual TB symptoms," Cameron shrugged. "I figured that if I was right, she'd start to get better. And if I was wrong…"

"Oh, you _figured_?" House interrupted with false drama. "Who authorized it?"

"Mmm, let's see," she leaned forward to peer at the papers in House's hand. "Can you read that? It's very loopy, but it seems to be a 'g.' George Hose?"

Sensing danger, the four younger doctors deftly made for the exit. She watched a grin slide onto his face, and for a moment he let it settle there. "I taught you well," he said, satisfied. She paused in her inner-reveling.

"You knew I was right, didn't you?" she said, shocked at the fact and shocked that this knowledge seemed natural to her. His gaze revealed nothing. He let her mind work as he barked for his subordinates to come back and receive their new orders – retrieving the test results asap. In the meantime, she caught Wilson's gaze again and was surprised at what she saw. His shrug signified his response to House's usual behavior, but his eyes conveyed his fascination with her own.

She had changed, she decided; only it wasn't because of him but rather in spite of him. He had challenged her. Bent her, used her, pushed her, pulled her – abused her and captivated her as no man ever had. In the end, she'd left. Not running, no. She'd tried that once. She had left slowly and in stages, promising herself a future that was perhaps not as alive, but one that would at least be livable.

Had he called her back to see if his trial by fire had worked? To see if the mold that both his intentional and inadvertent lambasting had created was finally hardened and ready to be used? She wanted to damn him, to hate him enough to be merely and objectively professional – or at least as professional as he would allow other to be in the midst of his behavior. But instead she felt a smile grace her lips. Arguing had been fun. Playing him had been fun.

Knowing somewhere inside her that he understood the game, knew the outcome from the beginning – it frightened her. It fascinated her. It filled her.

He liked her.

His feet were propped up on the desk, television turned to some sporting event. Baseball, soccer – he was only mildly paying attention. The results of Cameron's treatment rested unlooked at on his desk. He continually bounced a blue ball off the nearest glass wall, deaf to the harshly annoying sound.

He liked Wilson because the oncologist was easy to crack and yet interesting to study. Wilson followed patterns – in his marriages, his relationships, his work. At times he deviated from those patterns, and life was a bit more interesting for House. The potential monotony of their relationship was assuaged by Wilson's refusal to make analyzing him into a hobby. Sure, Wilson could shoot barbs, could cut (on occasion) to the truth of House's character. But he seldom judged, seldom seemed to care about the observations he made. He was more interested in presenting his findings to House, in forcing House to face himself. It was a bumpy cycle that never quite repeated in the same way.

He didn't slow his rhythm, even when Miller lumbered in with tentative confirmations of the sarcoidosis. The puzzle was over. The time for caring – if there ever had been a time for caring, and only in relation to the puzzle, never the patient – was well past. Miller waited a few seconds longer than necessary for no answer from his boss, and House fumbled the ball as annoyance gripped his attention.

He had never liked Cameron much.

She was hot, yes. In the beginning, she'd been a puzzle. A moderately easy puzzle that he knew he could figure out by making some phone calls, putting in a little effort. But she was hot and so he'd decided to draw out the puzzle as long as he could. What he had discovered was that the puzzle was more complex and deep than he'd first assessed. And, while he hadn't been looking, she had decided to make him _her_ puzzle.

Unlike Wilson, she judged. She poked and prodded, every minute, every day. Even when she wasn't consciously doing it, he could feel her. Her looks, her words. She wanted something from him, and he couldn't live with that. Her suffocating need made life with her cumbersome and predictable. Or perhaps that was simply what he told himself. Everyone lies, so how could lying to himself possibly come as a surprise?

"Heard Cameron was right – sarcoidosis," Wilson stuck his head into the office, startling House and causing a slight glitch in the rhythm.

"Don't care." Ker-THUD. Silence. Ker-THUD.

"Oh, right," Wilson said smugly, sliding into a chair, "You undermined her, she undermined you – which, I remind you, she's never pulled off successfully before. Ah – okay, at least not that often. Why would you care?"

House reluctantly, thoughtfully stopped his motions. "I didn't know if she would do it," he said intently.

"Well, like you said, she learned from you."

"No," House shook his head slowly. "I didn't teach her. I didn't want to."

"Oh please," Wilson scoffed. "You never knew what you wanted. You still don't. You think she's this damaged, yet somehow pure creature, and you alternate between trying to preserve her, to keep her intact, and selfishly trying to taint her so that, oh, I don't know, you'll finally have someone who really understands you." House said nothing for a moment, then began his rhythmic bouncing once again.

After a few more minutes, House simply said, "Dinner?"

Wilson had always provided House with the truth, and then left him to his own devices. Cameron held the truth up like a victorious mirror and then stood over House's shoulder as she forced everyone to face her neatly drawn version of reality. He had never figured out the 'why.' He'd had his theories, but had never been able to confidently and conclusively reconcile himself with any of them. Part of him knew that was one of the reasons he had brought her back. She herself could forever remain an enigma and he wouldn't care - if only he could solve the 'why.' Or at least that was what he told himself.

Wilson had yet to answer his question when Cameron purposefully walked into the room. House suspected she'd been avoiding him, but puzzling over the newest developments in their relationship was proving unsatisfying and he found himself, for once, resisting the urge to confront her.

"Treatment's working. The damage to her legs will take longer to heal – if it can ever completely heal at all," she said, directing her attention more toward Wilson than him. She'd changed into a navy cocktail dress – shorter than the skirts she sometimes wore to work - yet she still had on her damn lab coat. She'd let down her hair and freshly applied her makeup, he noticed. He wondered if she wanted him to notice, if she wanted him to care, and thus, finding himself caring, cursed himself.

"That's good news," Wilson nodded. "Beats lung cancer."

"Doesn't matter," House quipped. "She was either going to have cancer or not – it was unrelated to the other stuff."

"Yeah," Wilson said in exasperation, his brow wrinkling, "Who cares if the girl has cancer? You're not even amused by the sheer improbability her having those symptoms?" House shot him a triumphant grin, ready to pile on the numerical barbs.

"Wilson, not statistics," Cameron sighed.

"Jimmy here and I are gonna go get some dinner. You should come," House said abruptly. He heard a strange note of hesitation in his voice that made him nervous. He caught her eyes for the briefest of moments before looking down at his ball with a feigned deep interest. Her mouth opened slightly, her eyes round, and she seemed to be searching for a breath so that she could answer.

"Actually I meant to tell you that I have to cancel. Something came up," Wilson ruined the moment with his inane vagueness.

"What?" House scrunched his face up. "What the hell do _you_ have to do?" He was saved from answering as all three turned their attention to the sound of the door the adjoining conference room opening.

"Ali," boomed a smooth voice. Cameron looked like she was on mental processing overload, but nevertheless dutifully accepted Richard's embrace. The man looked just as tidy and fit as the last time House had seen him. Turning from watching him rub her lower back slowly, House mouthed the word 'Dick' to Wilson.

With a stern look toward House, Wilson stood up, engaging in idle chit chat with the couple as House glaringly observed. His latest issue of US Weekly had featured a column that dissected the body language of celebrity couples in order to discern their relationship status. He sneered a little as he focused on Dick's arm wrapped firmly around Cameron's waist, noting the way she seemed to be leaning away from him. Definitely more "Tom and Nicole: The Later Years" than "Tom and Katie."

He was a little surprised when, while Wilson and Dick were still being gossiping girls, she sought his gaze. He slackened his face into a passive expression, expecting her own to be either irate or nervous. She was neither. Calmly she looked at him – stared at him – even as Dick tightened his hold.

"Babe, you ready to go?" The presence of others in the room was reasserted by Dick, who'd only given House the curtest of nods.

She smiled and awkwardly, apologetically said, "We have reservations." House gave a nod, tired and disappointed that Dick had interrupted his game. There was an awkward silence for a time.

"You both should come," Dick said with a brightness House was willing to bet was false.

"Richard, I'm not sure-"

"It's alright Cameron. I'd love to, but I have a prior commitment." Wilson put on his "people pleasing" manners which, apparently, charmed the hell out of the smarmy Dick. After making his excuse, he looked pointedly in House's direction, as did Cameron – albeit with more uncertainty in her eyes.

"Love to," House said cheerily. Wilson narrowed his eyes while Cameron turned a shade paler.

"Great then. Shall we?" Dick droned on. House wondered if the man was simply ignoring Cameron's thinly veiled unease or if he truly was oblivious.

"After you," he said, standing up and grabbing his coat and hat off the stand. He ignored Wilson's peeved gaze on the way out but was intrigued by what he swore was a hint of amusement that briefly flashed across Cameron's face. "Say, _Richard_. Does this place have steak?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (7/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_Hide and seek  
__Trains and sewing machines  
__All those years  
__They were here first  
_"Hide and Seek" – **Imogen Heap**

"What were the results of the Hepatitis test?"

"Irrelevant."

House scoffed. "Not if that was what was killing her."

"I'm telling you it's irrelevant," Cameron suppressed a smile. "You can't expect me to give you results of tests we didn't run."

The dim lights of the restaurant created a buzzing atmosphere rather than an intimate one as she, Richard, and House dined on their mediocre faire. Her second glass of wine sat nearly empty next to her picked over plate. Cameron had never been to Devono's before and had only come at Richard's insistence. How he'd researched the current yuppie 'it' spot in Plainsboro from his apartment in Boston no longer surprised her as it once might have.

House, on the other hand, had seemed slightly baffled not only at Richard's having gotten the reservation, but by the ease with which he was able to add House to their group.

"I thought Wilson said he was living in Boston," House's low voice had grumbled into her ear while they were waiting to be seated. In her response, she bit back her annoyance at Wilson's divulgence, trying unsuccessfully to stop the sudden tremor her body experienced at their close proximity.

She had taken over the conversation immediately once they sat down, attempting to avoid a repeat of House's visit to Boston. She chatted with Richard about his work until she felt House's gleeful sarcasm was about to burst forth with zeal. It was in that moment of desperation that she'd devised a small game to keep the master puzzle-solver occupied – not unlike convincing a wearisome child to see how high he could count, she mused. She'd racked her brain for old, puzzling cases from her time in Boston, presenting them for House to solve as she slowly gave him bits and pieces of information. Biopsy negative. MRI clean.

Richard had seemed mildly interested at first, but his interest quickly turned to annoyance as he watched their tentative enjoyment of the game and each other. Four scotches later, he was openly glaring at House, eyeing his as well as her uneaten food.

"I've got it," House said.

"You sure? Because the last two guesses didn't go so well." Cameron's eyes sparkled and she tried not to think about what it meant that she was speaking civilly to House, let alone having a good time.

"Hey," Richard suddenly disrupted the game. "Ali, it's your song, isn't it?" She was taken aback at first by the abrupt shift in his mood, but, worried as she was about his seeming unhappiness, she cocked her head as though she were listening closely.

"Yeah, I like this song," she said, only somewhat agreeing with his original statement.

"Ali is one hell of a dancer," he said to House. "You ever seen her dance?" House shot Cameron a weary look of displeasure, then shook his head once in answer to Richard.

"We don't really dance in the office Richard." She forced a laugh in an attempt to lighten the mood while at the same time placing her hand on his arm – as if that would stop him.

"You dance, House?" Richard asked, his face full of cruel innocence. Cameron had to make a conscious effort to keep her mouth from dropping open. She'd never seen Richard act like this – _ever_. She avoided House's gaze while silently counting to five before saying anything. House brings out the competitive nature in people, she mused. Yeah, but that doesn't excuse Richard, the other voice in her mind argued. "I mean," he continued, "before your…thing." Cameron looked down in shame while an emerging anger began to boil inside her.

"You mean my _crippling_ disability?" House shot back. It was game on. "Gee I don't know, _Dick_. Can't say I ever took ballet – oh don't worry, I'm sure _all_ your football teammates did it. Helps you to be more graceful, find your feminine side. I hear chicks dig that."

"Ali," Richard ignored House, putting his hand on her arm. "Dance with me." She turned to him and was shocked to see a trace of anger in his face directed at her. She glanced back at House, his face once again a neutral mask of disinterest.

"Ah…well….okay," she stumbled. Though she had a strong desire to smack Richard in the head, her fear of his and House's bickering match turning into an all out brawl made splitting them up the most favorable option. Her head spun a little as she stood, reminding her of her still relatively empty stomach. She felt uncertain and strange as Richard led her to the dance floor, leaving House a solitary, lonely figure. Foremost in her mind was her surprise at Richard's distress. She knew that he had never held House in esteem, but she hadn't perceived any outright despising until now.

On the dance floor, Richard seemed to lose some of his anger. He pulled her close, a contented sigh escaping his lips. She loved Richard, she really did. He was strong, reliable, and he knew exactly what he wanted. _She_ was what he wanted. It'd been too long since she'd felt wanted for herself alone, and so she had let him love her, welcoming it, even.

Though her back was toward House, she could feel the two men glaring at each other, her in the middle. She had worn the blue dress for House, this she knew. Though she hadn't seen Richard in nearly a month, though he had gone to special lengths to arrange their evening, and though House was only supposed to see her in the dress for five minutes, tops, she had worn it for him. And so, here she was, dancing with Richard in her damn blue dress as waves of self-doubt washed over her.

"You boys just about finished?" she queried icily.

"Ali," he sighed her name, stretching the simple letters out in a way that both pleased her and annoyed her at the same time. "Sweetheart, I love you, but someone's gotta stand up for us here."

"What are you talking about?"

"Honey, he's trying to suck you back into his world, can't you see that?" Cameron balked, nearly stopping on the dance floor. "Don't look at me that way! You're the one who told me how hard it was for you to leave the first time. He's a man that knows what he wants Ali, and he wants you. If you can't see it…sweetie, but I _can_. And someone's gotta let him know that you're not his to take."

Richard wanted her. He wanted her for his own. So why was it that she still sought out House's desire - needed it? She was under no false pretences about Richard's character. Yes, he was an ass. He was egotistical, prejudiced, and territorial – but then again, so was House. The difference was that Richard had made a place for her in his life. Though it sometimes seemed a pedestal from which he could show her off, it was a defined place nonetheless, which was more than House had ever been willing to offer.

"Richard, you're not making any sense," she murmured. "I love you. I'm going to marry you. House is just…someone who happens to work at the same place I do."

"Ali, if you really love me, trust my instincts on this one," he replied. She sighed in frustration, yet remained silent while the song played on. She hadn't really ever _liked_ this song, and now she was beginning to hate it.

Back and forth they swayed, turning slightly until Cameron and House were finally facing each other. She should have stopped at his look of exasperation, at his shrug of indifference. But years of observation and unrequited caring had taught her more than she would have liked, and her gaze sought out his right hand, rubbing his leg methodically.

She wondered then what it would have been like to dance with House. Where he would have settled his hands. How his breath would have played across her shoulder. Her neck. Would she have wrapped her arms around him tightly, desperately? Or would they have simply _fit_? His eyes locked with her own, for a moment, clear. She wondered if he had been thinking the same thing.

"Did you ask me to dance to punish him?" she asked suddenly, a coldness passing through her.

"I don't like the way he looks at you," Richard answered. She stopped, pulling out of his arms, fixing her right hand to her chest as though the pain of her conflicting emotions could be felt physically in the core of her heart. She loved him – Richard - she could tell herself that until she was blue in the face. Yet the full price of that declaration, she felt, was just beginning to make sense. Before either could speak further, Richard's pager obnoxiously went off.

"I gotta get this babe. Be right back." She remained motionless as he kissed her cheek and squeezed her arm before making his way to the lobby.

"Hot date?" House greeted her as she took her seat.

"He got a page," she responded absently. Then, "I'm sorry he did that. I'm sorry I said yes. You must –"

"Heart disease," House interrupted suddenly.

"What?"

"Patient X. Heart disease. I'm betting you had to do a transplant." His gaze held her own steady. She felt as though she was being tested. "Am I right?" She gave way to the moment, absorbing the glasses clinking around her, the pockets of laughter – light and airy, low and sultry – that littered the room. House across from her, intense, persistent. It reminded her so much of another place, another meal, another time. She pulled it toward her even as she pushed it away.

"Muga, 7.9," she said softly, smiling down at her unfinished meal.

"I've got an emergency," Richard announced, returning to their table. "I've got to catch the next flight back. Leaves in an hour and a half. I'm sorry Ali – we'll have to make it up next time."

"What?" she furiously hissed. Richard eyed house contemptuously.

"I hope it's not too serious," House said with mock concern. Richard, either ignoring or completely missing the underlying sarcasm, responded seriously, noting that his patient needed an immediate chemical peel if she was to be ready in time for her party in the Hamptons. House shot an incredulous look at Cameron.

"Walk me to the lobby." It was somewhere between a plea and an order, which Cameron dutifully followed - once again avoiding House's gaze, vehemently strutting after Richard, hands balled into fists at her sides.

"Richard," she began before he could get a word out as he stood, waiting for his coat. "I haven't seen you in weeks, we haven't even finished dinner – and as for your behavior tonight…we _need_ to talk. And not tomorrow, not next week – now." Her eyes pierced his own, fierce and demanding.

"This is the nature of our profession Ali, of our lives. You know that. Would you be as upset if House was called away for some kind of emergency?" He shrugged into his coat, the pulled out his wallet.

"That's not the same," she protested, shaking her head. Her curls tensely jarred to and fro.

"Because he 'saves' people while I merely make them pretty, is that it?" Richard asked, and for the first time she saw hurt beneath the anger in his eyes.

"No," she gently put her hands on his arm, stopping his movements. "Because he's not the man I'm going to marry." Richard held her pleading gaze for a minute, but they were interrupted by the hostess returning his credit card.

"They're just words Ali," he said, a little softer and with a sigh. "You're someone different with him. I don't know how to describe it. He comes into our lives out of no where, whisks you off – what are our friends supposed to think? What am I supposed to think?" He gently tucked her hair neatly behind her ear, and she dipped her head. "Leave with me." This time it was more of a question.

"You want us to drive you to the airport?" she asked in confusion.

"No, Ali, I want _you_ to drive me to the airport." She looked over at House, sitting less than patiently at the table. Richard's cruelty, however "well-intentioned" he had tried to spin it, still rang in her mind. She owed House - at least this one thing, if not more.

"Richard, I can't just leave him here…," she trailed off as his face drooped into a weary grimace.

"You can't leave him, Ali. That's what I'm trying to say. That's what I'm afraid of." He kissed her forehead lightly. "I had them call a cab. They've got my card, so the check will be all taken care of. I _will_ call you." He continued to stand in front of her as if waiting for some kind of reaction.

"You better go," she finally said. He nodded silently, and then he was gone. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to their table. House, seemingly oblivious to everything around him, was attempting to balance various pieces of cutlery on his water glass. She swallowed the smallest of smiles.

"Papa bear seems angry," House greeted her return.

"You about ready to go?" she asked, downing the last of her wine.

"Check?" Cameron nodded her head no, still swallowing.

"Richard picked up the tab. Hell, who am I kidding? He probably expensed it as a business dinner. That's probably why he wanted you and Wilson to come."

"So let me get this straight," House continued, ignoring her personal comments, "We can order anything we want off the menu still, and he covers it?"

"Yeah," she shrugged, "I guess. Why? You really like the food here? You barely touched your plate."

"Food?" he asked, his face bright. "No." He flagged down a waiter passing by. "Scotch on the rocks," he ordered, "And another glass of wine for the lady."

"Actually," Cameron interrupted, her face becoming brighter as well, "I'll have the same." House peered at her sideways, saying nothing until the young waiter left.

"Great thing about alcohol," he finally said. "It's so…"

"Universally pleasing," she finished – and she swore that, for a moment, she had caught the hint of a grin on his chiseled face.

Several drinks later, House's mood was approaching that of a normal human being. The smooth, searing scotch cleared his mind, better allowing him to observe and analyze the world around him. Scotch – pretty much alcohol in general – had always acted as a compliment to his pills, allowing him to do his job and, more importantly, to grasp again a feeling of normalcy he'd long since forgotten.

The magical healing powers of alcohol could not, however, be applied in the same way to Alison Cameron. He'd tried to stop her after the fourth drink, but she'd only erupted into a lecture on men underestimating the drinking tolerance of women and then into another lecture on the hypocrisy of him, an admitted addict, telling her when to quit. He'd shrugged at that statement, unable to argue, though a small part of him still wanted to remind her of what she'd be feeling in the morning. Only a small part though. A very small part. Minuscule. Not so miniscule, however, that its mere existence didn't disturb him.

"Richard loves me," she said, quieter now, placing her drink firmly on the table.

"I'll bet he does," House responded dryly, not even bothering to feign interest or sincerity. She wasn't going to be remembering this conversation in the morning. He took another sip of his drink.

"At least I think he loves me." She looked confused, her eyes gazing at a nonexistent spot on the tablecloth. "We look nice together, anyway, that's what everyone says. Don't we look nice together?"

"Picture perfect," he drawled. She chuckled low and ruefully, and he couldn't stop a small smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. Drunk Cameron, though promising to be even more annoying and preachy than Sober Cameron, was also slightly amusing.

"Know what he thinks?" Her voice had gone lower, and she leaned across the table as though she were about to reveal a great truth. "He thinks you have a thing for me." The humor was gone from her face, replaced by something both achingly familiar and terrifying to House. "And that's not even the best part."

"Oh goody. There's more."

"Mmhmm." She paused to take another sip. "He thinks that _I_ have a problem leaving you." She reclined back in her chair, now training her gaze directly on him. House brought up a hand to his head, beginning to regret his last drink. He slowly wiped his hand over his face, finally tugging at his chin.

"Time to go," he said, raising is eyebrows as though to shock her into compliance.

"What?" She glanced around her at the mostly empty tables. "Are they closing already?"

"Exactly," House lied, "And if we don't get out of here, all these nice people are going to lose their jobs." She cocked her head to the side, that intently mysterious look in her eye again. He shifted uncomfortably. Coming here had been a bad idea. _Such_ a bad idea. Why had he done it? At that thought, he jerked his head a little in frustration. Great – he was going to turn into a maudlin, ponderous drunk, just like her.

"Fine. Let's leave. I've got the car so-"

"Woah there Courtney Love. I think you better hand those over." He plucked the keys from her loose grasp as they both stood, and attempted to head off her protestations by gently but firmly guiding her towards the exit. The minute he slipped his hand under her elbow, however, she froze. He watched her gaze disjointedly yet still somewhat lucidly travel from his hand up to his face. Her doe-eyed look of innocence – mixed with something that looked like it could be a distant cousin of desire – caused him to cease all thought processes and almost promised to be the final straw.

"You're touching me," she nearly whispered.

"You're drunk," he said to her in a louder, ridiculing voice. His abrupt gruffness had its intended effect, and she more silently acquiesced to his directions.

By the time they arrived at her car, she seemed to have resigned herself to his driving. Wordlessly she slipped into the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. As he pulled onto the street, House wondered if he should just take her home – she clearly couldn't drive herself anywhere in her current state, and she wasn't likely to improve much in the twenty minutes it would take to get to his place. Yet that decision involved actually going to Cameron's home and invading her space in a way that he suddenly wanted no part of. He was saved from this decision-making dilemma by Cameron's surprisingly insistent voice.

"Just take me to your place." He peered sideways at her, assessing her seriousness. "Oh please," she sighed in exasperation, "I'm going to call a cab to meet me there. You can bring my car back to work. There's no sense in you wasting the rest of your night being my chauffeur." And, though he was still uncertain, he found himself turning down the familiar route to his apartment.

The city seemed quiet and House felt like he was driving in a car commercial as he carefully navigated the dimly lit streets. Something dangerous had happened with Cameron and he needed a proper "evade and ignore" plan. She'd finally stopped giving him the silent treatment at work long enough to satisfyingly deceive and defy him, but could he enjoy that? Oh no. Dr. Nip/Tuck had to come and ruin their tentative truce with ridiculous posturing and inane accusations.

It wasn't until he pulled in front of his building that he realized Cameron had yet to call for a cab. Turning in confusion to berate her, he paused when he saw that she had fallen asleep. He was not a sentimental man. He didn't suddenly feel a pang at the way her lashes gently grazed her skin or the way a stray curl of hair caressed her cheek. No, these were mere evidence of her beauty – a fact House had never denied.

What _did_ affect him – and this he would admit to no one – was the level of pure openness he saw in her unguarded state. There had been times, especially at the beginning of their acquaintance, when she had so clearly attempted to bare her soul, to openly and honestly confront him in what he could only assume was a naïve hope of reciprocation. But, feeling that he knew her better than she did herself, House could see these instances for what they truly were: Cameron presenting to him the version of herself that she thought would be best able to win over his gruff heart. She'd never been open and honest with him because she'd never been open and honest with herself.

Sensing a lack of movement, her eyes fluttered open, locking on his own. "Home," he gestured with his head toward the building outside her window. She nodded silently, still getting her bearings.

"Cab," she muttered, a sharp intake of breath signaling her sudden realization.

"You can call from inside," House replied, getting out of the car and not looking back. For a moment, he wondered if she would follow. A long time ago he'd have been certain. A not-so-long time ago he would have been equally certain of her _not_ following. He thrust the thought out of his head with a powerful surge of indifference and unlocked his door. Turning a little, he nearly started at the petite form close behind him.

Her eyes were smoky with fatigue and weariness as he motioned for her to enter first, closing the door behind them. He observed her carefully for signs of snoopiness. There was only one other time he could recall that she'd been here, to one of his few havens. Any prying on her part, however, was confined to the area around his prized piano. He'd been searching the night before for a certain piece that he hadn't played in years. His quest had resulted in the haphazard piles of music that littered the top of the piano and the floor surrounding it.

"Phone's over there," he said, uneasy in his own home. Not responding, she walked past the open keys – damn him for forgetting the cover – her hand fluttering over them for a moment with an undeniable air of…_something_…that House recognized but could not name. She was too close. There was a sudden eruption of frustration, and a hint of anger, inside him. Perhaps for the first time that evening he suddenly felt his lack of control fully, felt it pulling him down deeper and darker, suffocating him with its chaotic grip.

"Would you play me something?" Again with the doe-eyes. She was like some kind of stupid forest creature, unknowingly and innocently exploring a dangerous minefield.

"Ahh," he shook his head, giving her a grimace, "No." His answer was firm, yet his eyes held her own gently, almost against his will. If she was an innocent exploratory creature, then he was equal part deer in the headlights, waiting for the sense of danger to pass before making any kind of move.

Then she was up and walking toward him. Close, closer, he thought he could smell her. A turn, and she was headed for the phone across the room. Letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, House looked around him in agitation for something to do. He tapped his cane on the ground as Cameron's still vaguely slurring voice settled across the room in an uncomfortably natural way.

He began to pick up and organize the strewn sheet music, attempting to block out her presence. It wasn't long, however, before she'd joined him again, wordlessly sifting through one of the many remaining piles. He seated himself on the bench, propping the pages against the keys as he organized. She knelt near the coffee table, shuffling through the titles with a strangely practiced air. Eventually, she walked behind House, reaching over his shoulder to gently place a Chopin waltz on the piano.

He turned his head until he could almost, but not quite, see her. He followed her arm as it retreated, the tips of her fingers finally disappearing from his vision. He wanted to ask her why Chopin, why this waltz. He wanted to ask her if she knew what it was, what it meant, and how. But asking would have betrayed curiosity, and, behind that, feeling. And he had never been known for feeling.

He could have ignored her silent request, could have walked into his room, shutting the door behind him. She would likely forget most of this night in the morning. And it was perhaps with that thought that he, finally, put aside the sheaf of music in his lap and began to let his fingers stretch and prod the ivory bars. A lifetime of habit allowed him the freedom of attention necessary to pick out Cameron's soft sigh, to hear the low crunch as she settled onto his leather sofa. And then, as he danced through his fingers, House began to hear and see nothing around him but the colors of the melding harmonies in his mind.

When the song was finally over, he sat motionlessly. The feeling of desperate, hollow longing, familiar to him most often at the end of a vicodin buzz, washed over and through him, tiring and satiating him all at once. The sound of a car pulling up to the door caught his attention, and he finally glanced back at Cameron. Once again, she was sound asleep and curled into the corner of his sofa. With more stealth than he knew he possessed, House slipped out his front door, passed the driver a few bills, and sent him off. It was only when he reached his door that the full implications of what he'd done caused his head to droop and nearly left him unable to enter his own home.

She was still asleep when he finally did enter. Hating himself, cursing himself, and only (he told himself) due to his certainty of her not remembering this in the morning, he draped a blanket over her. He told himself that she'd be even more pissed if she ended up with a cold after all this. Told himself that Cuddy would blame him for any sick time Cameron had to take off.

He told himself that the reason he couldn't fall asleep in the room down the hall from her was the scotch, the music, the pain.

He told himself.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (8/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return.  
_**a/n:** Thank you _so_ much for your comments!! They mean a great deal and I'm very pleased that you're enjoying the story! I'm going to try to eliminate the gaps in between my postings too – me and my crazy Snow Patrol obsession are going to drag this thing over the finish line if it kills me!

_Please don't let this turn into something it's not  
__I can only give you everything I've got  
__I can't be as sorry as you think I should  
__But I still love you more than anyone else could  
_"Make This Go On Forever" – **Snow Patrol**

Alison Cameron could not move her head. More accurately, she could not turn her neck. No looking up, no looking to the side – well, no looking without unbearable pain accompanied by a bright, searing light. In fact, her whole back was entirely fucked up. She lay flat on the floor behind her desk, shades drawn, Bach cello suites humming in the background. Laura had helped her get down there while Janie had searched through Cameron's iPod for some soothing music.

"Anything but Chopin," Cameron had grunted as she ungracefully jerked her way to the floor. That had been two hours ago though, and she was starting to feel restless.

Her mind strayed back to the events of the previous night, eliciting yet another deep groan from her. She remembered bits and pieces. Crisp still was her anger at Richard. He'd called twice as she'd lain on the floor, and each time she had instructed Janie or Laura to make up a lame-sounding excuse. She was with a patient. She was getting test results. It was too difficult to reach the phone, she told herself. Truthfully, she wasn't sure if she was ready to speak to Richard yet. Wasn't quite sure what she'd say.

It was after she finished her third scotch that things started to get a little fuzzy. She remembered the cool evening on her skin as she walked to the car. Recalled sitting next to House in the passenger seat. She could even dimly picture the layout of House's apartment, bathed only in moonlight and the light shining above the piano.

The piano. She remembered that too. Chopin. But it was all still a blur, one she'd been trying to clarify before any further interaction with House. In a second, the blink of an eye really, something had shifted between them. Something familiar had returned; something strange had been introduced. The shift remained for her much like the previous night – cloudy and full of shadows. She had set out to assert her independence from him and had only managed to become more fully embroiled in his mind games.

She was contemplating whether it would be harder to reach up onto the desk for her cell or more embarrassing to call out for help when an emphatic knock sounded at the door. She bit her lip for a moment, wondering if the person would go away on their own while at the same time half-hoping they'd come in and help her.

"Cameron, are you in there?" Wilson's worried tone elicited a relieved groan from her and she called him in. "Why the hell is it so dark in here? Where…where the hell are you? Are you on the floor?" He walked over to stand next to her feet, looking down on her in bewilderment.

"I hurt my back," she grimaced, attempting to shrug and immediately regretting it. A lot.

"Ah," Wilson stuttered, and she swore that she saw him blush.

"What?" Cameron's tone was accusing. She definitely did not like that look. Had he spoken to House? Was there more to the evening that she couldn't remember?

"Well…I just…Richard is in town and…I don't know what you guys do and…"

"Oh _God_ Wilson," she wailed, "I fell asleep on the couch, okay? Richard didn't even stay the night. He got called back to Boston during dinner."

"Sorry," Wilson exclaimed, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. But the mirth remained in his eyes, and she could tell he was suppressing his laughter.

"Can you help me?"

"Sure." He paused, brow furrowed. "Help you how?"

"Help me up, Wilson," she groaned.

"Okay, okay, okay," he said soothingly. He awkwardly moved to her head, gingerly placing his hands behind her neck and shoulders. "Can you sit up a bit?"

"I think," she grunted through gritted teeth. Eventually he managed to support her up to a standing position, his arms hooked under her elbows, hands clasping her own. Dr. Clark picked that moment to walk into her office without knocking. The trifecta of reactive looks that crossed his face – shock, amusement, and opportunity – brought her to what she felt was her new "high point" of the day.

"Dr. Clark," she acknowledged him before he had a chance to run off with a made-up story. God, was she panting? "Dr. Clark, come on in. Dr. Wilson was just helping me up. I seem to have thrown out my back."

"Right," Clark responded, drawing out the vowel. "That's okay. I can come back at a time when you're less…busy." Shooting a smirk at Wilson, he retreated from the room with a bounce in his step. Cameron sighed as deeply as she could, leaning back against Wilson for a bit longer.

"Wonder where he's going," Wilson said with a false brightness.

"Thanks Wilson. I'm sorry if this screws up any inner-office relationships you've got going," she joked, trying to lighten the mood. However, her words had the opposite effect, and she saw Wilson pale, his eyes go wide. "Oh my god," she grinned, "There _is_ someone?! Wilson!" He held up his hands, trying to shush her, as he sprinted to the door, closing and locking it. "And now you've locked us in my office – you trying to make this worse?" He brought a hand to his forehead as he unlocked and reopened the door with the other.

"Could you just…not say anything to House?" he whispered. Her mouth dropped open in shock. "I know, I know – what the hell am I talking about. But you could inadvertently let it slip or you could allude and then…seriously, the slightest sniff of something and he's going to be all over it like…"

"Yeah, I get it," she muttered. "So, who is it? Is it that new nurse in the clinic?" Wilson tried, unsuccessfully, to retain a neutral look on his face. "It is, isn't it?" She grinned once more, happy to be able to focus on something other than her pain. "Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me." And now she would also have leverage in the event that House ended up relaying information to Wilson about the previous night that she herself could not remember. Not that she couldn't get Wilson to fold on her own, she mused with another grin.

"Yeah, well…I'm going to get going. Page me if you need anything. Help getting up off the floor, a shot of morphine, you know, anything." As she watched him leave, she felt the pain slowly edging back, reclaiming her senses.

"Janie," she called, walking gingerly to her doorway. "Where's the file on the new guy from yesterday. The one with the seizures?"

"Oh," Janie stammered, looking down at the desk in apprehension. "Ah, it's gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, um, Dr. House came by this morning while you were, um…"

"Yes Janie, I know what I was doing. What did you tell him?"

"I said you had a headache." Cameron rubbed her forehead, feeling the start of one at the young woman's words. "Then he said he was taking the file and, if you had a problem with it, you could get it back from him."

"Fine," Cameron kept her answer clipped, hoping to encourage the girl to be less intimidated by House. Had she herself been so fragile and accommodating during her first months under him? She shuddered at the thought. "Just go there and bring the file back."

"But Dr. Cameron-"

"Go," she said in exasperation, closing her eyes in exhaustion. She retreated into her office after hearing the gentle click of Janie's heels grow softer and softer. She was still there, braced against the wall, when Janie returned, pale, frustrated, and sans file. "Goddamn it," she muttered, heading slowly yet purposefully toward the elevator. She was in no mood.

A couple dozen stares from hospital staff and a few awkward turns later, Cameron inched her way into House's office, desperately wishing she could at least put her hands on her hips. "My file," she said icily. He looked up from his television, appraising her awkward stance and movement. Remaining silent, he dropped his legs from their perch on the desk, and walked the file over to her, holding it out amiably.

"What's missing?" she asked, grabbing the folder then holding it up at eye level so she could flip through it.

"Nothing," House shrugged.

"Why the hell did you take it?"

"Curiosity?" She paused, mouth open a bit. What the hell was going on?

"What did you do to him?"

"Do?"

"Yes, what tests did you run, what treatment did you give. Where's the differential? Is it on the board?"

"No tests, no treatment. No differential." She sigh slowly.

"Why are you doing this?" Sensing the conversational shift, House turned his back on her, retrieving a ball from his desk. "Is this," she hesitated ever so slightly, "Is this because of last night? Did something – did I –" How was she supposed to ask him, of all people, why she'd woken up early that morning on his couch, covered by a blanket?

"Last night?" He shrugged, tossing the ball into the air casually.

"House," she said bitingly, raising her arm and taking an unthinking step forward. She gasped in pain, dropping the file from her hand to immediately support her lower back. His eyes darted up in concern, the ball motionless in his hands, yet his stance remained calm and unfazed. As she breathed through her pain, he slowly walked up to her, then leaned down to pick up the fallen file.

"You're in pain," he murmured, and she thought she saw something strange in his face, something akin to guilt. It was difficult to pin down, however, due to the shooting agony that was causing her to see stars. She tried to take a step forward and stumbled a bit, causing him to gently steady her by grasping her forearms with his own. The minute the contact registered in her brain, it was gone. "Here," he reached into his pocket, producing a full bottle of pills that he shook suggestively.

"You can't be serious," she grinned a little through her grimace.

"As your doctor, I couldn't be more serious," he said with fake sincerity.

"No," she said simply, catching herself before she could shake her head. "I better get back –"

"Other room," House suddenly commanded, walking to the conference room without waiting to see if she'd follow. Part of her wanted to turn around and leave, was too tired to deal with his insanity any more. Yet another part of her wanted the damn file, wanted to finish what she'd practically crawled over to get. So, grudgingly, she stepped into the room.

House had pulled a chair sideways near the couch, hooking his cane on the back. "There. Onto the couch," he ordered.

"I don't have time for this-"

"Cameron, just get on your stomach on the couch. I can fix this, if you'd only look outside your prejudice long enough to accommodate my disability," he barbed with false distress as he shuffled over to close the blinds. She continued to regard him skeptically. "Fine," he shrugged, returning to the table, "Be in pain all day. Continue to lay on the floor of your office in pain instead of actually, oh, I don't know, being a doctor. Better put Wilson on speed dial." His final remark was rewarded with a flash, then narrowing of her eyes.

Taking a breath, refusing to think of the word regret, she edged her knee onto the couch, holding out her hand. "I'll need some help." The tortured look on his face, she figured, somewhat balanced out the probable humiliation she was about to experience. He seemed slightly surprised at her acquiescence, but hid himself from her scrutiny by moving behind her to help her take off her lab coat. She felt his hands hover for a moment above her shoulder blades and resisted the urge to groan – moan? – at the electric mix of pain and anticipation of pleasure. Though he managed to remove it without really touching her, she continued to feel the heat of his presence which only added to the heat of her pain. Tossing the coat on another chair, he reluctantly held out his hand, helping to brace her as she descended onto the couch.

"I'm not so sure," she suddenly muttered, hearing House moving around but unable to see what he was doing. She slowly and painfully turned her head ever so slightly to the side in order to breathe.

"Shut up," House commanded, but there was a softness to his voice. He – gently – lifted her head just enough to maneuver a small pillow under it. And then, before she could say anything else, his hands were pressing into her back, kneading places that she hadn't known existed, let alone suspected as the cause of her distress.

"How – ah – did you – oh – I mean where-" She took in sharp breaths and let out short gasps, feeling the tension slowly but surely leave her body in spurts as House moved from one area to the next. She felt his fist pressing into her back one moment, then his fingers spanning out, fluttering across the narrow expanse the next. Suddenly and sharply a clear image of House playing the piano appeared behind her closed eyes.

"Only part of physical therapy that doesn't suck," House muttered, intent on what he was doing. The words fell away, however, and her concentration centered on the pair of hands deftly returning her back to pre-couch looseness. Slowly, methodically he worked his way through her muscles. In an effort to retain her hold on reality – on her sanity – she had started off naming the muscles silently in her head as he touched them, attempting to retain the clinical aspect of his actions as much as possible. After a while, however, words like iliocostalis and longissimus had melted with the sounds of her erratic breathing to form an incoherent, babbling mantra of pleasure in her mind. As the pain in her back fell to a dull ache, the pain left in her neck became more prominent.

"Neck," she heard herself mumble. She was rewarded for her efforts by the slightest of touches as House's hands refocused their efforts. Though delicate at first, his fingers gradually began to knead more deeply and more surely. Desperately wanting to show her gratitude, Cameron tried to form more words, but felt herself succumbing to a curtain of sleep as pleasure flooded through her body, replacing the tension and weariness of her pain.

Hours (it seemed like days) later, she awoke, blinking an extremely confused Dr. Miller into focus. His mouth, she could tell, was moving, yet his words were making no sense. When Clark came into her eyesight, another smug smirk on his face, she pushed herself up of the couch, ready to flee. In mid-push-up, however, she paused with a gasp.

"Dr. Cameron, are you okay?" Words and pictures suddenly clicked into focus while she held her breath carefully, fearful of moving an inch. Her back. The pain. All came flooding back to her as simultaneously images of Miller and Clark carrying her, bent in an unworldly position, back to her office in humiliation.

Gently, clenchingly, she let the breath out and was astonished at the lack of pain. She slowly finished pushing herself off the couch until she was sitting on the edge of it, across from the two bewildered doctors. She could move. No, it was better than that. She hadn't felt this loose in a long time.

"What were you doing on the couch?" Clark insolently asked. But Cameron couldn't think of answers just yet. She was still processing the "what."

"I, ah, I have to get back…"

"Dr. Cameron," Miller called out, concern and eagerness lacing his voice. "Your file?" He held out a familiar red folder which slipped into her hands, surprising her with its lightness. _Catalysts should be heavier_, the thought startled her. She mumbled her thanks, then exited, the echo of her clipped steps mingling with the hushed, gossiping chatter of the men she'd left.

As the elevator doors closed, the overheard phrase "gets around" continued to buzz in her eardrum as crisply as the satisfying ding of arrival. With such a complete sensory overload, it was no wonder that she failed to notice the third member of her audience, the owner of a pair of deep brown eyes, wide with shock. His sharp intake of breath did not register, nor did his sigh of disbelief.

His one utterance, _Oh boy_, lightly pushed from his vocal chords with weary breath, blended in with the whoosh of the elevator doors closing - lost to her, but not erased.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (9/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_And it's beginning to get to me  
__That I know more of the stars and sea  
__Than I do of what's in your head  
_"It's Beginning to Get to Me" – **Snow Patrol**

Wilson suspected something.

Wilson was always suspecting _something_, but this time, House mused, his suspicions were morphing into actions. He looked out the blind-covered window behind his desk at the sunny, blue sky and tried not to wince. Damn sun. Persistent. Cheery. Blinding was more like it.

It had started about two weeks ago - the day of Cameron's back pain - when he'd foolishly attempted to help her out of some misguided and unexpected feeling of guilt. Guilt was not his thing – quite the opposite in fact. Yet he'd seen her pain, so unexpected on her delicate features that were more often than not oozing with useless emotions like compassion and empathy, and it had affected him. Instead of pondering over the why or how, he'd spent his time since then trying to deny his motivations and rationalize his actions. He would have been successful too, had it not been for Wilson.

_"How's the new couch?"_ Wilson's question, full of knowing, moral superiority had been the first inkling of trouble. House had answered with a look of suspicion, simultaneously calculating the depth of Wilson and Cameron's friendship. _"You know, the expensive, completely uncomfortable one you got after my last break-up so I'd never move in again?"_ House had again remained silent, warning Wilson with his eyes. In that moment, House felt himself paying the price of friendship - too high, in his opinion, especially in their case. The at times rocky, dysfunctional nature of their relationship should have come at least at half-price.

He'd managed to evade Wilson that day, but the oncologist had been baiting him ever since. That very morning Wilson had offered, out of the blue, to carpool together to work. Though House had initially thought better of it, his laziness had won out in the end. It wasn't until he saw the medium-sized birthday bag on the passenger seat – the one Wilson pretended to have forgotten about – that he truly, though briefly, rued his weakness for mooching off of his friend. There was only one person for whom the gift could possibly be intended. Wilson seldom bought gifts for people at work and, if he did, always took great pains to conceal them lest he endure a full day of House's ribbing.

This time, however, House had said nothing about the gift. Wilson had smirked the entire way to work, and House had been powerless to do anything about it without risking Wilson bringing up the subject of Cameron. And, based on Wilson's actions of late, that was not something House was willing to do.

Turning his back on the picture perfect day, House sank into his chair, continuing to thoughtfully rap his cane on the ground. He knew that Wilson suspected him of…questionable…actions and intentions where Cameron was concerned. His frustration with House for never providing a sufficient answer as to why he'd even brought her back was, House mused, probably the root of Wilson's recent intensified observation of the pair.

Wilson suspected something. Thus, Wilson was trying to meddle. Thus, he would have to take appropriate steps to ensure that Wilson's meddling led nowhere and that it soon stopped. Before he could begin to formulate just how he would cease that meddling, he looked up to see _her_ standing in the doorway – expectant and so annoyingly, eerily calm.

"Busy?" But it was a formality, and his mind raced, checking possibilities, examining the catalogue of minutiae he stored for emergencies both medical and otherwise.

"Very," he drew out the word, hoping to buy time and thus increase the appearance of further clues. Even her blinking was languid. The hint of a smirk ghosted her face. Then again, time did nothing for him if she felt like she had all day. "Is there a point to your little visit? I believe birthday cake is on floor four." Was there a spark of pleasure in her eyes at his admission? He didn't want to know – didn't want to care.

"Chocolate," she said simply, moving further into the room. "With white frosting," she added, slipping into the chair across from him. Her movements were too damn slow and methodical for his liking. Why was she here? He knew only that he would have to perform flawlessly if he hoped to discover anything at all.

"I know. Already had three pieces." He searched for something on his desk to play with. Ball. Stapler. Rubick's cube that he'd stolen from pediatrics for reasons he couldn't remember. He picked up the multi-colored puzzle, tossing it up and catching it with a deliberate flair. Let her wonder. "I didn't get you anything," House said, throwing her a mock look of worry.

"Didn't expect you to," she smoothly replied, unruffled. His patience was proving very thin.

"I could take you bowling," he joked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes at his own inanity. Why couldn't she just leave? Instead, she seemed to settle deeper into her seat, chuckling good-naturedly. A silence settled over them. While she seemed more than comfortable in it, he was one moment away from whacking all nearby objects with his cane if only for the satisfaction of hearing something.

"Wilson got me-"

"Don't care," he said abruptly, irately running a hand through his hair. "Look, don't you have somewhere to go? A hot night out on the town with the fiancé you have to get ready for?" He began to pace.

"No." Once again, her answer was smooth and steady. This time, he paused, looking up at her sharply, trying to assess her seriousness. He forced his thinking to slow down and back track. He'd missed something – what was it? He felt the answer, tantalizingly close yet obscured.

"Wilson said-," he began slowly.

"I know what I told Wilson." He realized then that the steadiness he'd seen in her face wasn't that at all. It was something deeper, something darker. Warning bells went off in his mind, his eyes retreating to some unfocused point across the room. He cursed himself for underestimating her, for believing they were still playing checkers when she'd clearly moved on to chess. When had it shifted? He slowly began to pace again, peering sideways at her from time to time.

"Oh – kay," was all he would venture.

"What do you do for fun?" Despite the situation and the fact that _she_ was asking, he couldn't stop himself from waggling his eyebrows, a lecherous grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Not _who_," she scolded, her eyes shining, "What. Keep it clean. And remember, I already know about the monster trucks."

Her eyes held something that looked far too much like hope for his taste. He'd seen it and impulsively desired to extinguish it immediately. And yet. For the briefest of moments, his mind had simultaneously flipped through the short list of activities he liked to categorize as "not-unpleasant." That had been an impulse too, though weaker and nearly forgotten.

For a moment he was speechless, giving into those wide, gray eyes. And then he heard himself mumbling something about voyeurism, saw a veil draw over her expression as it reverted back to one of weariness that was so familiar to him. She was gone and he was suddenly unclear, annoyed, and unsatisfied.

Later, he watched her leave, arms full of bags stuffed with ribbons and paper, balloons wafting buoyantly over her head. When he was sure she'd really left for the day, he walked two files over to her department, thrusting them at one of her shell-shocked staff.

"But, where should I tell her they came from?" the young blonde stammered.

"How should I know? I'm just a messenger. In fact, don't mention my name at all. Clear?" She nodded her head vigorously, effectively convincing him of her compliance. He nodded his head once before briskly strolling out of the office.

He felt disturbed by his actions. Alone in his office, the disgustingly picturesque sunset hidden from view, he examined the photo he kept in the back of his bottom drawer. It was useful for times like these, he thought, clicking to his favorite jazz album on his iPod. It helped him remember an essential truth that he was apt to forget every now and then. It stopped the questions in his mind.

Cameron could not explain her irrational love for her temporary apartment. At first she had thought it was the feeling of returning home – for Princeton would always be home in a sense. It was where she had grown out of her sorrow and grief and into something else, something she was still figuring out. Truthfully, however, Princeton was as much the same as it was different, as much a return to the old as it was a new beginning.

As she rolled out of bed and walked over to the blinds, she wondered if it was the coziness of the apartment itself. She raised the blinds to reveal the windowsill, damp from the rain due to the faulty seal that had yet to be fixed. This reminded her both of the clogged bathroom sink and the disturbing hole in the living room wall. Of course, on the other side of that wall were the loud, insanely sexually active neighbors that she had only heard but never seen. No, she decided, not so cozy. As a temporary living space it was fairly adequate, and memories of her med school days reminded her that she'd seen worse. However, she was glad that she would be leaving soon for a nicer, more spacious condo.

She was rummaging through her nearly empty fridge for a yogurt that had not yet expired when the phone rang. Propping the door open with her foot, she leaned back to pick up the phone. There were only two people who would call her this early. They were in between cases at the hospital, so that could only mean one thing.

"Hello?" Her voice pleasantly echoed off the walls of the kitchen. She resumed her rummaging in the fridge. "Hey sweetheart." She could have sworn she had one last blueberry. "No, I'm good – Richard – Richard, we've been over this. I'm not mad." She sigh in frustration, grabbing a strawberry/banana in defeat. "Richard, I don't like birthday's anyway - I'm not being passive aggressive - I'm not! You have patients, I understand."

Where were her damn spoons? She scanned the stacks of boxes strewn around her kitchen floor, searching in vain. "I told you! I went out for a drink with some people from work, then came home. – No, he wasn't there. He wasn't there Richard. – Believe what you want to believe." She kicked the nearest box in frustration, then directed her attention toward the sink, hoping she'd saved at least one spoon.

"What? – I told you, I'm staying at the Hilton. – I don't know the room number yet, I'll let you know when I find out. – This afternoon. Or tonight. I'm not sure. I have to be out of here by the end of today, so I'm just going to pack everything in the car and take it to work. – Yeah, that's all still in storage." A fork. That's all there was in the drainer next to the sink. One lonely fork. She sighed in frustration, peeled back the lid of the yogurt, and stirred it with the fork.

"Well, because I have the gala tonight. – I told you about the gala. – Richard, I _told_ you. – Yes, he'll be there. – I don't want to talk about this. – Richard. Richard. When are you coming down next?" Holding the phone up with her shoulder, she brought her meager breakfast back into the bedroom, climbing back into bed. It looked a little like rain outside, she noted. Grayish-white, but still. She craved the weather report, but remembered that she had already unplugged the television. Damn. Well, she'd definitely have her umbrella since she would be packing her entire temporary-life into her car in an hour or so.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I know you have to go. But, when are you coming? – Richard, just give me an answer. – What the hell is that supposed to mean? You're being ridiculous. How many times do I have to say it? There is nothing going on. – What?! I am _not_ obsessed with him. How can you even say that?" She placed the yogurt cup on the nightstand beside her. She definitely wouldn't miss the furniture in this place. The mattress was lumpy – and she hadn't even wanted to think about it beyond that. The furniture was old, but in a cheap rather than vintage way.

"So what are you saying?" She played with some loose stitching on her bedspread. She loved this bedspread – had hated to put it on this disgusting mattress. She was going to wash it before christening her new home with it. "Fine. – Fine. – No…just…fine. – Okay. – Yup. – Bye." She punched the off button on the phone, tossing it toward the foot of the bed.

Closing her eyes and sighing, she let the silence of the room, the building, and even the city, envelop her. _This_, she thought suddenly and savoring the notion, this is why I love this place. And she knew then that it had nothing to do with the city, nothing to do with the four walls itself. She realized that the attractiveness of her abode resided in what it lacked more so than anything it offered.

More terrifying and disturbing than the realization itself was the lack of surprise she felt at her conclusions. How long had she known this? What did it say about the life she thought she had made for herself? And, perhaps most importantly, what did it say about her decision to return?


	10. Chapter 10a

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (10a/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return.  
_**a/n:** I promise this will be the last Snow Patrol lyrics. Maybe. Also – thanks for the amazing comments. I'm surprised and delighted!

_There is a darkness deep in you  
__A frightening magic I cling to  
_"You're All I Have" – **Snow Patrol**

Cameron eyes lingered over the gown hanging on the door to her office. It was late in the day and she was considering whether or not to change before checking in to her hotel. The dress was strapless, black with white stripes that were thin at the bodice but fanned out near the bottom. She loved it. Was excited to wear it. Sort of.

She had to go to the gala because it was a hospital function. Doctors from around the country – some of the best in their fields – were going to be there. This time they were raising money for Alzheimer's research, and Cameron hoped that meant Foreman would be among the attendees. She'd called him a few days ago to check and had found out that he hadn't even gotten an invite. A quick call to Cuddy had changed that, but she had never heard back as to his final decision.

Her conversation with Richard that morning flew into her mind like a jolt of electricity, ceasing her thoughts and causing her to wince. She had felt off-balance all day. She felt free, and that disturbed her. Sad, distraught, determined to fix things – all things that she should have been feeling. The freedom felt scintillatingly dangerous. It frightened her.

A knock at her door drew her out of her thoughts. "Come in," she beckoned. Wilson's face appeared around the door, and she found herself smiling. "Wilson." She liked the feel of his name on her lips. Old. Comforting. Friendly.

"Hey," he said in a strained, slightly hesitant voice. Her radar went up.

"Ready for tonight?" she asked tentatively.

"Ah…uh…that's actually kind of what I came to talk to you about," his smile remained in place, only serving to increase her nervousness. "I just got a call from a hospital in Maryland about a patient of mine. He collapsed while visiting relatives. They've asked that I fly down there for a quick check up."

"Oh my God," she said sympathetically. "Anything I can do?"

"Yes, actually," he said, and she immediately regretted her words. He hesitated for so long that she began to get anxious.

"Wilson," she prompted.

"Yes. Ah, um. I was supposed to pick up House for the gala," he began.

"No," she said firmly, standing up and walking to the opposite end of the room. Distance. She needed distance.

"Cameron-"

"Wilson, no," she pleaded. He paused for a moment, then nodded sorrowfully and turned to leave. She rolled her eyes, but focused guiltily on his retreating form. "Wilson, wait." He turned, a look of anticipation on his face. "Okay," she said softly.

"Thank you!" he exclaimed. "He's expecting me in about an hour. I don't have time to call, but it'll be okay. Thank you, Cameron. Thank you." She nodded her head distractedly.

"Wilson." He turned back reluctantly and she hesitated. There was never time for the questions they needed to ask. Patients and puzzles took up so much of their lives while fear and reluctance filled in the precious cracks of personal time in between. "Looks like it's going to storm," she said softly, managing a small smile. "Be careful." And then, "No, wait. Wilson. How…how did you know – I mean when you were married, all those times you were…married…how did you know that – that it was over?"

His eyes were wide with unsuspecting surprise as he planted his hands on his hips thoughtfully and pursed his lips. "Well, the divorce papers always kind of sealed the deal," he offered ruefully. Cameron looked down a little, not giving into his attempt at humor.

"But before all that. When did you _know_?"

He looked intently at her for a moment before saying, "Did House do something-"

"Oh God Wilson! I'm not talking about _House_. House and I aren't – we aren't – we," she sigh in frustration, pushing uselessly at papers on her desk. "_Richard,_ Wilson. I'm talking about _Richard_."

"Oh." Wilson's eyes became even wider as he slumped against her wall. "I didn't know you two were having-"

"We called off the engagement."

"Ah." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And you're wondering if you should or if you only did because-"

"Because," she paused, "Because House is – House is-"

"Because House is an ass," Wilson finished quietly. He took a deep breath before saying, "Well, I guess I knew it was over when we…when we didn't want to fight anymore. At least not about anything that mattered. I didn't want to hurt them anymore…and nothing they said could really make me…care." He stood up straight, satisfied with his answer, and opened the door a little. "Without that passion," he shrugged. "Do you – I mean, are you still going to want to-"

"I'll get him. Don't worry," she said, grinning until she was sure Wilson was out of the office.

She gazed thoughtfully, once again, at the dress as she picked up her phone with a sigh. "Hello. I'm not going to be able to check into my room before six – can I hold it with a credit card?"

He couldn't tie the damn tie. Where the hell was Wilson?

He couldn't tie the damn tie and Wilson was late. Not that he cared about getting to the gala on time – quite the opposite. He did, however, care about being first in line for the open bar. He sighed in frustration, yanking the bowtie off impatiently.

Where were his pants? He wandered out of the bathroom like a dazed amnesiac, throwing back the covers on his bed, then kneeling down to scour the floor. Truth be told, he liked his tux. He was like Bond – Dr. Bond. He simply hated the functions to which he could wear it.

Tonight, he promised himself, tonight was gonna be good. He had a deck of cards in his jacket pocket, a wad of cash in his missing pants, and a celebratory cigar with his name on it in James Wilson's top-left desk drawer. He was considering having a glass of scotch as an appetizer when a knock at the door caused him to narrow his eyes and stand up.

"It's open you idiot!" He heard the hesitant opening and closing of the door as he continued to search for his pants. "Could you _be_ any later? I can't get this damn tie thing and the bar opens in less than an hour. You know Cuddy's going to have my picture out to them by the time we get there and I'll have to don my Russian spy getup again." There was no response from the other room. "That is, if you're done with it from the other night." Silence. What the hell was his problem?

"God Wilson, are you-," he stopped dead in the doorway to his living room. His mouth opened a little, then closed in a thoughtful line. He cocked his head to the side. "You're…not…Wilson."

"No," Cameron's voice was calm, but he noticed the slight flush that skated across her cheeks as she took in his appearance.

He held up a finger. "Pants." Then he walked back to the bedroom swiftly. As soon as he entered he saw his pants draped over a chair. "Thanks a lot guys," he muttered, grabbing them roughly and putting them on hastily. "Where the hell is Wilson?" he yelled out.

"He had a patient," she called back. He could tell she was distracted. Probably looking through his things, feeding her obsessive need to stalk him. No wait – that was him. He smirked a little.

"And he sent you to pick up his prom date? How utterly thoughtless." He decided to give the tie one more go. There was no way he was going to ask her. As he fumbled with the ends, he waited anxiously for some kind of sound from the other room. "Stand by the door," he barked, "And whatever you do, don't touch-" The delicate sound of his piano dipped into his words, taking his power of speech away and instead creating its own light and melancholic melody. Scratch that. _Her_ melody.

He sucked in a breath and held it. Chopin. No – Schuman. Lieder. Traumerei? He let out the breath. Yes. That was it. Slowly, anticipatorily, he was drawn to the instrument, to the picture of her in that dress sitting on the bench that he polished with such care (the only thing he ever cleaned).

Her fingers, he noticed for the first time, were long. Long and slender, they hesitantly but knowingly caressed the keys – _his_ keys. She'd taken off her strappy shoe and her bare foot was intuitively working the rightmost pedal. She leaned her head over her hands, cocked to one side as though she could hear some strange language (beyond the music) coming from her fingers.

He was at her side, hands on his piano. Possessively. But through them he could feel the vibrations of her melody, her touch transmitted to him through his beloved instrument. He half expected her to stop, to look up at him, doe-eyed and full of apology. But she didn't. She gave the piece its dignity and finished it until the last note hung in the air sweetly, sorrowfully. The lack of its presence as it died away seemed to press on House from all sides. He looked at her, trying to keep his face free of expression.

"Thirteen years," she shrugged, "Mr. Harrison's living room." She wrinkled her nose. "Always smelled like mothballs." She reached out and delicately traced the E-flat key. "And the keys always stuck." Her gaze was committed to the keyboard now as she waited for something from him – what, he wasn't sure.

"You know," he said slowly, feeling strange. "That piece is a duet."

"Oh, I know," she rolled her eyes. "Mr. Harrison always made me play the lower part. Said I didn't have enough legato and phrasing in me for the melody."

House paused, trying very hard to mentally peer down two very different paths into his future that were about to diverge from the moment they were having. "He…was an idiot," he said evenly. His eyes wandered around the room, slightly apprehensive, catching her's every once in a while. He took a deep breath and walked around the bench to the left side. Nudging her over a little with his foot, he sat beside her on the bench.

Turning his head toward her, but keeping his gaze on something far off and not yet existent, he silently asked her a question. She placed her hands on the keys in response. Low and hollow, House landed on the first, solidifying notes of the piece. Cameron answered with her higher, lighter chord, and their conversation continued on through minor chord changes, crescendos, accelerandos, and, finally, a ritardando.

The music ended much as it had before, bleeding into the silence. He turned his head, examining her profile. She seemed to still be absorbed in the music. In that moment. As she finally turned her head toward him, questioning eyes capturing his own, he wondered if she had any inkling of the moment they were about to have. The moment he would force them, finally, to have.

He wondered if she, given the choice…

And then he leaned forward and pressed his lips against her own.


	11. Chapter 10b

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (10b/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_Wake me up inside  
_"Bring Me to Life" – **Evanescence**

She'd forgotten how much she hated traffic during major events at the hospital. Egomaniacal doctors, already tipsy from the airport lounge, driving overly expensive and powerful rental cars. Tonight, however, was doubly special due to the rain coursing down at a steady rate. She sigh as yet another person cut her off. This was not a good indicator for the rest of the evening.

She nearly slipped as she trotted the half-block between her parked car and House's apartment. Even with the large umbrella she held, she could feel her dress being ruined. "Damn you, Wilson," she muttered for what seemed like the millionth time. Finally reaching the sheltering haven of his building, she slowed her pace. He never cared about being on time, so why should she?

She rolled her eyes at the garbled response behind the door after she knocked, reluctantly letting herself in. House was in the middle of a rant about ties and drinks which she paid little attention to as she meanderingly perused her surroundings.

True to his nature, he'd changed little of the place since the last time she'd seen it, nearly eight years ago. Her eyes skimmed over book titles, wondering which he had read and when. Her path took her nearer and nearer to the piano, which, unlike everything else, looked extremely well taken care of. A pang of longing shot through her spine, and she could barely restrain her hand from reaching out to caress the smooth surface.

Suddenly, she stood up straighter. There was silence. She turned around to see an astonished House ridiculously clad in a white tuxedo shirt and a pair of boxers with light blue stripes. "You're not Wilson." She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks, but she was also amused. He would try to spin this, she knew. Either that, or avoid it completely. Knowing him was sometimes so…_comforting_.

Her response gave him enough time to devise a plan, however temporary, and then he was gone again. As he questioned her, voice somewhat muffled through the semi-closed bedroom door, she responded absently, her attention refocused on the instrument before her.

It was as though she could no longer think – merely feel and act. She sank onto the bench, hands nervously gripping the smooth wood. Gently and delicately she grazed the keys with her right hand. Their glossy perfection caused her to sigh as a dozen memories fought to be recalled behind her eyes.

She told herself to get up, to walk away from the piano. But the rain. And her dress. And the memories. It had been _so long_ since she'd felt a song coursing through her. Why had it been so long? Bringing her left hand up to join her right in a weightless dance above the keys, she closed her eyes. It was too much, but still not enough. Unconsciously, she slipped off one of her new shoes. The metal pedal was cool and resistant against her foot.

_I dream_, she threw her thought out at the piano through her hesitant fingers, letting go. She'd played this song so many times in her life. She'd played it to achieve perfection, to obtain approval. She'd won a gold trophy once for playing it, had searched her mother's face for pride. She'd played it for David – both in the beginning and at the end. She'd played it only once after his death, back when she couldn't get out of bed for a week. She was surprised at how well she remembered it. And though it wasn't perfect, she _felt_ it perfectly (perhaps for the first time ever) – of that, she was sure.

After she finished she felt something inside her release itself, felt something else take its place. House was giving her a look of alarm and unease – she almost laughed. His assumptions about her had only ever gotten him into trouble instead of saving him from it.

"Thirteen years." She would offer him something. Something in return for her invasion of his sacred instrument. "Mr. Harrison's living room. Always smelled like mothballs. And the keys always stuck." She wanted to give him more. She wasn't sure if she knew how any longer. Wasn't sure if he could accept. If he _would_.

"You know," he tried to sound deceptively noncommittal, but she could feel his pressing intensity. "That piece is a duet."

"Oh, I know," she would keep it light. "Mr. Harrison always made me play the lower part. Said I didn't have enough legato and phrasing in me for the melody."

"He…was an idiot," he said. She wanted him to ask her why she had never told him that she played. But then again, she was glad he didn't, for she didn't know the answer. She wanted him to ask why _that_ song, wanted to tell him the "when's" and the "why's." But at the same time, she didn't. She knew he wouldn't.

He was sitting next to her. Her body was reacting to directions from somewhere deep within that she hadn't realized was still functioning. Hands, feet, ears – it was sensually heartbreaking and fulfilling all at once. _So_, she thought, in the few moments before feeling and music overtook her mind, _it will be here_.

It came, the second time, like a rush. Notes and phrases skipped and scattered until there was nothing. And everything. She couldn't breathe as the last note faded into the history of Them. _IdreamIdreamIdreamIdream_, it drummed in her head, keeping her sane, keeping her lucid.

What had she done.

She turned her head toward him at the very last moment of his uncertainty. He knew something now, she realized in the seconds before They and Them. But he'd always known so much more than she about them both and what it meant and what it was. It.

When his lips questioned her, she froze for the merest of seconds. Then she leaned into him in response. Her hands, which had been clenching the bench and the piano relaxed and made their way up to cup his jaw. Near, so near, were her hands to touching him – she could swear she felt the prickly bristles on his cheek – when he pulled away.

It was smooth, it was swift. As though he had changed the channel on his mental tv. "Wilson will think we died," he muttered, maybe, or something to that effect. His back was her only companion as she floated down to reality, like a blazing autumn leaf fallen too soon. He was out the door and down the hall before she could get her shoe on.

When he walked back in to get his cane, she was still in a haze.


	12. Chapter 11

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (11/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return.  
_**a/n: **I cannot believe how sweet you all are being with the comments!!! Seriously – each and every one of them brighten up my day. (There's an additional comment which follows the story.)

_Truth begins in lies._

She was going to kill him; that much was clear after the fourth snappish voicemail Wilson listened to while navigating the halls of the hospital. Cuddy. _Lisa_. He smiled a little, despite himself and the evening. Echoes of music buzzing through the hallways provided a disarming backdrop to an eerie sense of stillness and inactivity.

He rounded a corner, heading finally toward the party, when he saw her. Petite beneath the large ceilings and next to the weighty medical equipment, she was commanding nonetheless. The determined click of her heels punctuated her purposeful stride. She _looked_ like she was on her way to kill someone. It kind of turned him on.

With a smirk, he called her name. When she turned, his smirk became a smile; because under her ire and frustration, he also saw worry. Worry for him. A worry that he – unlike House – could appreciate.

"Where the hell have you been?" She nearly jabbed him in the chest with her pointed finger. "I've left you a dozen messages, I called House – and that hasn't gotten me anywhere in _years_. Were you not aware of what was going on tonight? When I said, 'Meet me at seven,' were you mentally incapacitated in some way when you said yes?" She took in his slightly disheveled appearance. "Are you okay?" He loved the way she casually tossed it atop her diatribe.

"I'm sorry – look – I'll tell you in a moment. But we need to find Cameron."

"Oh I'm glad you brought _that_ up. You leave for two minutes and he acts like…like _him_, and she's in an exam room with a bottle of wine and the lights off. She even thinks you flew in a helicopter." The last she said in a disturbing impression of what he assumed was a tipsy Cameron.

"What the hell did he do?"

"It's not what he does – it's who he is," she shot back as they began to walk down the hall together. "Where were you?" He shook his head a little, silently willing her to be patient, as he pushed open the door to exam room three.

Cameron was indeed sitting in the dark. An unopened bottle of wine stood lonely on the counter across from her slouched frame perching heavily on the exam table. She looked up in surprise as he entered, and he immediately sensed her relief at seeing him.

"Okay, I'm glad you're alone," he said, awkwardly closing the door and turning on the lights. Cameron winced at the shock of their brightness. "About six months before you came back," he nodded at Cameron, "House went on a little trip. A vacation."

"House went on a vacation?" Cameron drolled skeptically.

"Las Vegas," Cuddy supplied, rolling her eyes. "Wilson, what does this have to do with-"

He held up a hand, cutting her off. "I thought it was weird too, but I shrugged it off. Figured at least it would get him out of _here_ for a while. But then my credit card bill came." Cuddy sighed and began pacing the room, her heels clicking softly under Wilson's monologue. "No charges. No plane ticket, no hotel room –"

"You're not Perry Mason!" Cuddy nearly whined.

"Wait, House has your credit card number?" Cameron eyes widened even as her forehead crinkled in mystification.

"See? _She_ thinks it's strange too," Cuddy zinged in a familiarly smug tone that elicited a questioning look from Cameron. Hoping to turn her off the scent, and eager to continue on, Wilson held up his other hand in one of his grand gestures of pause, eyeing the two women anxiously. "House-" Grand pause. Deep breath. "-can walk."

They looked at him with similar expressions of weak tolerance. "Wilson," Cuddy sigh, dipping her forehead into her hand, "Of course he can walk."

"No, no. No. No, he can walk _without_ the cane. As in, no more pain." This caught their attention. Cameron pushed herself off of the examination table, taking a step closer to Wilson. He explained that he _had_ flown to Maryland, but not for a patient. He'd met personally with a doctor from Holland who was in town for a conference. The doctor worked at the hospital that had treated House during his "vacation" six months before, and, for a little "compensation," was willing to share illegal copies of confidential files.

"Please tell me you do not have illegal copies of confidential files," Cuddy said, wincing. Wilson looked at her sideways.

"I don't," he shrugged and she sighed in relief. "But if I did," he continued, "They would detail House's experimental treatment which was a _success_ which means the bastard has been able to walk for _how_ long now?!"

"But I don't understand," Cameron chimed in, "Why wouldn't he say something to you? Why is he still using his cane?" He and Cuddy turned toward her, similar rueful expressions on their faces.

"I'm going to kill him," Wilson said, full of the nervous energy he sometimes confused with true rage. "I can do that now, you know, since he's not –" Wilson waggled his head forward a bit, gesturing wildly in the air with his hands.

"I have to go," Cameron said abruptly, heading for the door. Wilson's jaw dropped open.

"But, don't you want to be there for…what do you _mean_ you have to go?" She shook her head in response and turned toward him for a brief second when she reached the door. As he sought out her eyes, he saw something that made him fear for her, something he recalled seeing once in the eyes of another woman who's life was about to be enveloped by that of House.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed, shrugging slowly. And then she was gone.

"She's been acting weird all evening," Cuddy observed with a shake of her head. "Maybe tonight isn't the best time to talk to him about this. Maybe you're right – we should wait for Cameron to be there. Or we could wait and see if he tells us on his own. Maybe he's just waiting."

"Waiting?!" Wilson exclaimed incredulously, "What the hell could he possibly be waiting for?"

"You don't think," she lowered her voice, glancing involuntarily around the empty room, "he _knows_, do you?"

"I don't know," Wilson sighed, running a hand through his hair. He shrugged. "Possibly? Yesterday I would have said no, but…"

"Hey," she said softly, running her hands gently down his arms until they joined his own. "We'll figure it out. up with a plan to tell him. He's going to have to know eventually. Especially when he sees us each walking around with a baby. The same baby. He's clever like that." Wilson smiled a little, snaking his arms around her back and pulling her closer.

"Or we could just get two," Wilson said, only half kidding. She looked up at him with a bemused look of tolerance. "I can still pretend I'm going to kill him though, right?" he muttered into her hair.

"Oh, sure you can," she smiled.

"Cameron. C-A-M-E-R-O-N." She made sure the sweetness was in her face. Made sure it was in her voice. After all, she still had her manners. Yes, she might be stupid and repetitive in her mistakes, but damn it all if she didn't make them with a smile on her face.

She focused on the swirling dark green marble of the hotel front desk. She knew he had lied to her – of course he had. He was always lying about something. Usually she pretended not to care. Occasionally she didn't. But for him to offer her a possibility without showing her what it really was – she sucked in a deep breath to combat the rising rage. Focus on the marble. Cold. Hard.

"I'm sorry ma'am, could it possibly be under a different name?" She snapped back to attention.

"No."

"Are you sure your reservation is for tonight then? We have a rather large conference in town and-"

"Look at me." The final snap. "Look at what I'm wearing! Where do you think I'm _coming_ from?" A long uncomfortable pause followed her outburst.

"Well Dr. Cameron, we are solidly booked for the night and I-"

"Look again." Her tone was commanding, insistent. As he fretfully continued to type away – were there panic buttons in these places? – she wondered if she was acting like _he_ would act. Would he have barked out an order? Bent people to his will? Or would he have subtly manipulated them? Did it depend on the person? How, she tried to recall, had he done it to her?

"Ah," the receptionist breathed in relief, "Here's something. It's…you had a reservation. But…but check in time was 6 pm."

"I called," Cameron insisted.

"I'm sorry, there's no record of that. Dr. Cameron, your room has been given away. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it really is best to check in yourself before the-"

"No," Cameron said in an eerily calm voice. "No. You see, I need a room. I need four walls. With me inside them. Just me. And a bathtub. Do you understand?"

"But ma'am, there _are_ no rooms."

"I. Am not. A ma'am." Cameron said slowly, deliberately – desperately. Pulling her pocketbook off the counter, she trudged toward the exit in defeat. She hated disorder, hated chaos. Hated the way it made her feel. She could deal with him. In proper doses. On her terms. At fucking measured intervals.

He had lied to her about the only thing she'd ever known for certain about him, the only thing she'd ever been completely sure of. Back in her car, she slipped the key in the ignition without turning it. He'd made her fall in love with him again, only "he" no longer existed. She gently rested her aching forehead on the wheel in front of her.

This, she thought, was too high a price.

He almost didn't believe it was her. He'd heard that she had come back – didn't quite believe it. He'd even heard that she was making life hell for House – and that he _really_ didn't believe. But when he saw her, dress a little rumpled, wool coat hanging open and delicate on her lean frame, she looked more like a ghost of the past than a present reality.

She looked pale and anxious, as though she was in the middle of a tense case and on hyper-alert. But Foreman hadn't heard of any cases they were working on. He put aside his musings when she caught his eye and instead arched an eyebrow, offering her a warm smile.

"Hey," she said as they embraced, sounding genuinely glad to see him. "I can't believe you're here."

"No," he said slowly, "I can't believe _you're_ here. You do realize the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over-"

"-and expecting different results. Yeah." Her smile seemed a little ironic and he noticed her struggling to brighten her face. "Have you seen Wilson?"

"No. He's probably at House's game."

"House's game?"

"Yeah, you didn't hear? Cuddy banned him from the party unless he turned in his deck of cards. So he raided the bar and created his own poker party upstairs in the office. Took quite a few of the heavy donors with him too." Foreman was enjoying his brief return into the bizarre world of Princeton-Plainsboro. For one night – and from the outside – the place seemed almost entertaining.

"Aww, the gang's all back together again!" They turned to find House with an uncomfortable looking Wilson at his side. "Well, almost the whole gang. We can hire a look-alike to fill the wombat's shoes – a good Brit." Foreman observed Cameron narrowing her eyes at the pair, then swore that he saw Wilson give her a curt shake of the head. He kind of missed being on the inside.

"Wilson, I need a place to stay tonight," Cameron said.

"He can't. He has to drive me home," House replied.

"What does that have to do with me staying at his apartment?" Before their sparring could continue, Wilson broke in.

"I can't," he said to Cameron. Then, looking at House, he continued, "And no, I'm not."

"Not what?" House narrowed his eyes.

"Not driving you home," Wilson sighed.

"Why can't I stay at your place?" Cameron asked.

"Yeah," House chimed in, "Why can't she stay at your place?"

"I…," Wilson shifted his eyes around the small circle, "I'm having my house fumigated." Foreman glanced at Wilson, wondering when the man had gotten so crazy, but did not fail to notice the dawning look of triumph on House's face. His mouth hung open a little in awe, the ends curled into a rare cheshire grin. He mouthed "fumigation" to himself once more.

"Why didn't you get a hotel room?" House was now calm in a way that made Foreman want to shout out a general "clear the decks!" to the room.

"Well, it's all booked. Because of the conference," Wilson's phrases were disjointed – quick and sparse. Foreman had no idea what was going on, but even he could feel the tenuous thread by which the poor doctor hung.

"But you knew about this ahead of time. Why didn't you make a reservation?"

"I…did," Wilson said. They all leaned in a bit, waiting for more, but Wilson seemed satisfied in his answer. What the _hell_, Foreman wondered, was he thinking?

"Then why aren't you-"

"I canceled the reservation when I knew I would have to spend the night here, with a patient." Wilson's face was looking a little pale, Foreman noticed. He also caught a look of quiet and deep realization on Cameron's guarded features. It really did suck to not be on the inside.

Just then, Cuddy entered the group, smiling at Foreman and snarking at House. House's eyes remained trained determinedly on Wilson, as though he were looking for a hairline fracture on an x-ray. When Cuddy asked Wilson to go meet some donors with her, Foreman saw Cameron's gaze shift surreptitiously to House's face, a line of worry creasing her forehead.

The trio watched the couple make their way over to a well-dressed elderly set of guests as though they expected something profound or explosive to happen. Finally, Foreman muttered, "Somebody want to tell me what the hell's going on?" House gave him a withering look.

"Foreman, do you think I could…," Cameron's plea for help tugged at him a little. But she had an office with a couch, he told himself, and if she could chose to reenter the insanity of this place, then she could deal with the consequences.

"Cameron, you know I would, but the kids are at home with a sitter and Laney and I were kinda looking forward to-"

"It's okay," she said nodding sweetly, "I understand. How are the kids?"

"They're great," Foreman grinned, "How's Richard? I heard he's still up

in Boston?" A slight shadow crossed Cameron's face, arousing Foreman's curiosity. House chose then to turn to Cameron abruptly.

"Why didn't you ask Cuddy if you could stay at her place?"

"I did," she said, taken aback.

"And she said you couldn't."

"Yes," came Cameron's reluctant, stilted reply.

"And what was _her_ excuse?" A beat after his question, Cameron's face slackened, causing House to follow her gaze. Wilson and Cuddy were still with the donors, however his hand was now comfortably on the small of her back.

"Fifty bucks-"

"House," Cameron's sharp warning surprised Foreman as he finally began to grasp the magnitude of what was going on.

"Fifty bucks says that they," House paused, dropping a thick veil over everything internal that caused his gaze to become icy, "are having sex." Foreman could sense Cameron's distress, even if she had gotten a little too good at hiding things from the surface. Though he still felt a little behind, he decided that he'd help her in any way he could.

"Cuddy and Wilson?!" he said in the most skeptical tone he could muster. "Please! House, are you off your meds?"

"You in or are you out?" House glanced down at the still form of Cameron next to him. "How about you?" he mocked. Yet his eyes seemed to pry through her exterior for something he was certain was beneath.

"_I'll_ take you home," she said softly, and Foreman realized it was a plea. House finally completely broke his attention away from Cuddy and Wilson, gazing down at Cameron, intrigued. He glanced back at Wilson once more as if weighing something in his mind. Then, with a slow nod to Cameron and an abrupt nod in Foreman's direction, he headed for the exit.

"It was good seeing you Foreman," Cameron smiled wearily, granting him a quick embrace.

"Hey," Foreman said, wanting to slow down the situation – which, it seemed, he only _half_ understood after all. "You want me to come with?"

"Foreman," she chuckled and it relieved him a little. "I can drive House home myself."

"Yeah, I know you can. I'm just saying. If you need – if you – aww, nevermind. You're right. Good seeing you Cameron." She retreated a few steps, then, as though reluctantly giving in to some impulse, spun around.

"Foreman, do you ever – I mean, this place. Do you ever want to-"

He stepped closer to her, squeezing her arm supportively. "Cameron – you're a friend. But this," he glanced around the fancily decorated room, seeing the ordinary lobby of Princeton-Plainsboro underneath, "This was just a job." He shrugged.

"Yeah," she forced a small smile on her face. "Yeah." Then, spinning back on her heel, she headed toward the exit signs and a waiting House.

Comment 2: Yes, I know. And the thing is, I'm totally in the "wtf do you mean he walks now?" camp when it comes to S3. And yet. The show used it, so…sue them first.


	13. Chapter 12

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (12/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_If there's no one beside you  
__When your soul embarks  
__Then I'll follow you into the dark  
_"I Will Follow You Into The Dark" – **Death Cab for Cutie**

The icy rain beat down mercilessly against the windshield. House observed Cameron's profile from the passenger seat. Her jaw was set firmly, her eyes determined slits as she carefully navigated her way down various narrow streets. Her hair was loosening from where she'd tucked it behind her ear, threatening to cloud her vision, and he resisted an urge to brush it back for her. Let them crash. He forced himself to look away. It was her car anyway.

"So, how long has it been going on?"

"Has what been going on?" She was distracted, sure. But there was something very firm in her undertone, something he couldn't quite…

"You're pissed!" He was delightfully surprised at his discovery. She bit her bottom lip, gently slowing the car for a red light, and said nothing. "Wilson's banging Cuddy behind my back-"

"Behind your back?" She turned to him, her eyes squinted in distaste. "I didn't know you and Cuddy were so close, that she was off limits to everyone except-"

"So they _are_." House grinned in triumph. Her face fell a little, that sadness that had been inexplicably haunting him of late returning to her gaze.

"I don't know _what_ they are." She turned her attention back to the road as the light changed. House too fixed his gaze on the road, pursing his lips in annoyance. So why the hell was she pissed? His head snapped up suddenly as he had a thought. He eyed her sideways. Was she – _could_ she – be pissed at _him_?

Their silence for the duration of the ride threatened to burst the car with its fullness. As she finally pulled in front of his apartment, the sound of the sleet gave way to the emergence of a silent layer of snow. Putting the car in park, she stared straight ahead, presumably waiting for him to get out.

"You're…mad at me." His statement was drawn out languidly and she snorted in reply. "Is it because I-"

"House." Her tone was sharp, biting. So now _she_ didn't want to discuss it.

"Hey! You sat at my piano. Dressed like that." He nodded his head toward her. Her mouth opened a little then closed as she shook her head.

"Goodbye House." His hand was on the door when he thoughtfully cocked his head to the side, her figure just out of his peripheral vision.

"Come in." He dipped his head, wincing as he said it. Even he was a little surprised by his sudden change of tone. His words were softer, gentler.

"What?"

"You have no place to stay," he shrugged, "Except the hospital. And it's too dangerous to drive back there now, especially if you've been drinking-"

"I haven't been." She was clearly annoyed.

"Still…"

"Your concern for my welfare is duly noted Dr. House." Her words were wrapping them in an igloo of sarcasm. He kind of liked it. "Now will you get out?" Shrugging, he stepped out of the car into the chilly near-stillness of the evening. The lone streetlamp at the end of the block caused a glow in the snow falling around them, illuminating their standoff. He stood next to the car for a few moments, waiting for her to restart it and pull away. When she didn't, he slowly walked over to her door and rapped on the window, motioning for her to roll it down.

She slowly did, then sat there looking at him expectantly. He said nothing, instead locking his eyes on her own. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to her, still knew a few ways to earn a guaranteed 'yes' from her in an emergency. The trick was to make her think she was getting free admission without having to give even an inch.

He held on this time for a bit longer than he'd have liked. It was the panicked feeling of being pulled in by her that finally forced him to break the gaze. There was something he was still missing. The anger, yes. He didn't know what it was for, but really, there could easily be a dozen probable causes. There were other elements of her gaze, though, some he hadn't even deciphered yet. He was beginning to sense a desperation in her. Desperate for what though, and why?

It was dangerous, inviting her in. The roads were probably risky, but they were mostly empty by now. He couldn't stop, though. He needed to know. He needed to figure this out to stop himself from thinking about Wilson, to stop himself from thinking about their almost-maybe-moment before. He needed-

She rolled up the window suddenly, and he wondered if his old trick had lost its power. But then slowly she opened her door. Still saying nothing, he turned around, leading the way inside. This time he didn't have to turn around to know that she was following him; he felt it.

"What are you doing?" she mouthed to herself in the mirror. Sad, frightened, _needy_ eyes looked back at her. She ran a hand through her hair. She would think in small steps, that's what she'd do. Small steps.

She was wearing an old shirt of House's. And a pair of sweatpants (much too big for her) that she'd folded at the waist several times. And she was in House's bathroom. And House was outside. And-

"You're insane." The face – the mouth – in the mirror mocked her. She gripped the counter tightly for a moment. House could walk and Wilson and Cuddy and he'd kissed her and he wasn't in pain anymore and – wasn't in pain. Wasn't in pain? That was something, at least, that she could solve.

Unnecessarily looking over her shoulder at the locked door, she carefully, noiselessly opened the mirror to reveal the medicine cabinet behind. Various pill bottles, mostly vicodin, were haphazardly lined up on the shelves. She shook a few, all full. She bit her bottom lip, unsure what to think. She'd seen him taking pills – he'd taken one that very first day in the cemetery.

Sighing, she closed the cabinet and was once again confronted with her own weary expression. It was one night. One. Sure, she'd thought of this scenario a dozen times (a month) at a certain point in her life. But that was behind her. Besides – in her dreams, nights like this had never ended well. Never.

Before she could stop herself, she opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. She slowly shuffled to the kitchen, where House was sipping a beer in front of a small television tuned to the weather channel. She suppressed a smile.

"Idiots," he muttered, nodding towards the television but not looking at her. "A chimp with a map of the United States and darts labeled 'snow,' 'rain,' and 'sunny' could do their job." Cameron said nothing, absently rubbing her arm.

"Cold?" She earned a sideways glance with this inquiry.

"No," she shook her head a little too vigorously. "Just…tired." Great. She was lying to the human lie detector. "If you have some extra sheets or a blanket I'll just-"

"Cameron," House scoffed, finally looking at her with an 'are you stupid?' wince. "Do you _remember_ what happened last time you fell asleep on my couch? I bought that couch for a reason, you know. In case Wilson ever-"

She looked down at her bare feet, head spinning. He took another swig from his bottle, placing it neatly on the counter afterward. "Unless you have a guest bedroom that I'm just not seeing, I-"

"You take the bed," he muttered. "I'll sleep on the couch."

"Well what's going to happen to _your_ back?" she reasoned. He rolled his eyes, switching off the television set. She hated it most when he ignored her, when he dismissed her. She narrowed her eyes, planting her hands on her hips. "You're old."

He turned slowly, mouth agape. "You know, I'm still not sure if I like this _new_ Cameron."

"Most days I'm not sure if I like you and you haven't changed a bit since the day we met." But she felt her eyes sparkling, felt a smile tugging at her lips, turning the corners of her mouth upward even as she resisted. He surprised her – floored her really – by smiling first. It was brief, yes. Gone nearly as soon as it appeared, it looked impulsive and uncontrolled. But that was what made it so deliciously satisfying to watch. _She_ had solicited it from him. _She_.

He cleared his throat, looking annoyed with himself. "Don't be an idiot," she said. "We're adults. Or at least I am." He cocked his eyebrow at her, silently asking a question. "I get the left side." She was careful to keep her face passive and serious now.

"Would that be left when you're facing the-"

"Shut up." She walked past him toward the bedroom, willing her heart to stop pounding in her chest, willing her breath to return to normal. It was House. He'd lied to her yet again, had uprooted her place in the world yet again. He didn't deserve her coming back, didn't deserve her willingness to reenter this endless cycle of non-being that was _them_. And yet. Here she was again. Here they were. On the brink of beginning, ending, stasis. Hating to care, needing to care, clawing at the chance to not care, to walk away.

She was being sucked back in, had been gravitating toward this moment since the beginning. And the only thing that made it bearable was knowing that he hated it as much as she did.


	14. Chapter 13

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (13/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_Strange how you know inside me  
__I measure the time and I stand amazed  
__Strange how I know inside you  
__My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze  
_"Eric's Song" – **Vienna Teng**

_17, 18, 19…_

House silently ticked off the seconds before Cameron would shift for the millionth time. Her side. Her back. Her other side. Her stomach. This was going to have to stop, and soon.

She turned, this time flipping onto her back. She was upset about something. The thing with Wilson, maybe. Or something Forman had said? She sighed audibly, signaling that she was still awake, and he rolled his eyes. Okay, he _so_ didn't care what the hell was bothering her – at this point, she was a few turns shy of being kicked out onto the couch – back pain or not.

"Cameron," he said as he sensed her revving up for a shift. His voice was quiet but sharp. He felt her still and, for a moment, he had to really concentrate in order to hear her breathing.

"We had a fight." Except she said it all together, "Wehadafight." House scrunched up his face, even though she couldn't see it in the darkness.

"So call Loveline. Phone's in the kitchen."

"But it wasn't a fight," she continued on as though he hadn't spoken. He hated that, hated being ignored. "We didn't yell – well, _I_ didn't yell. He accused me of not caring about him, about his needs – and I said he was wrong. He accused me of sleeping with you behind his back – and I told him he was crazy."

"Cameron." He drew out her name this time – not quite a whine. He was in pain. He didn't do well with this…_stuff_. Crap like this was why Wilson existed, why he'd gotten married four times. House didn't do hook ups or break ups or feelings.

"I didn't _care_. And that's – that's how I knew that it was over."

"What?" His interest was slightly peaked, but he maintained his tone of exasperation.

"Us. I mean, I can't _marry_ him. He called it off, but I knew, I must have known."

"The Dick is a hot-headed man Cameron. I'm sure it'll blow over." He was trying to end the conversation, he told himself. So why did he find himself hoping that she'd say more?

"No, it won't. You knew though, didn't you? From the moment you met him. But not me. Oh no, I had to try once again to regain some kind of…whatever the hell this is I've been living for the past…for forever." Her words were rushing out now and House was fearful that her level of "emotion" filling the room was going to smother him. "And what do I do? I not only make the _wrong_ choice, I even fuck that up by coming back here. To _this_."

When finally the silence he sought for returned, he found it ringing loudly in his ears. Well of course he'd been right. The Dick _was_ a dick. Her problem was like that of most people: not listening to him when she should have. Oh no – he hoped she wasn't going to cry. _That_ would officially make this the worst night of his life.

"Why did you come for me, House? It wasn't to save me – you didn't even know about Richard until you'd gotten there." He saw her bring her arm up to her forehead in the dim light. "I'm such a fool." There it was again – that note of desperation, despondence, that was screwing with his mind. He wanted to stop it, to apply pressure until it could clot on its own, and that worried him. It angered him.

He should have wanted her gone, should have wanted her to drive back to the hospital in the snow storm and sleep in her office. He should have wanted her to marry Richard or to practice medicine in some far off, third-world country. He _should_ have continued to push her away like he'd been doing all these years. But instead, he'd boarded a plane, wandered a city, and found her.

"A while ago I told Cuddy I was taking a vacation," he began in a low voice. She completely stilled at his side. "I _told_ her I was taking a vacation, but really I went to Holland. I met with some doctors. About my leg. The pain. They'd been doing some research…related to some ketamine research they'd done years back. It was experimental, dangerous, not quite legal…but, they accepted cash so…"

She was silent, absorbing his words like she always did, looking for something beneath. _Tell me if you find it_, he wanted to quip.

"So then there was PT, which I actually _went to_. Six months."

"And now?" Her voice was so soft he almost didn't hear it.

"Now, I walk."

"And the pain?"

"Mostly gone. Far less than what it was." He shrugged. At least she sounded calmer.

"And…the vicodin?"

"Occasionally," he sighed. This was getting uncomfortable. "But don't tell Cuddy. She'll start psychoanalyzing my behavior."

"I saw you take it though. In Boston. Here."

"Not vicodin. Some crap they gave us in rehab. It sucks but…" He wasn't about to admit to liking the effect his swinging back a pill had on people – from patients to Cuddy to Cameron.

There was more silence for a while, and he assumed that she was taking some time to absorb his revelation. How much time had it taken him? In fact, he still woke up most mornings, hand glued to his thigh, prepared for battle.

"I knew." He turned his head to her, even though her form was nearly impossible to make out in the dark.

"What?"

"I knew," she said again. He analyzed the tone for any shades of pity or that horrifically persistent sense of compassion she always exuded, but found neither.

"You saw me. Before. When I walked back to get my cane."

"No," she shook her head, "Wilson. House, he knows. He told me earlier this evening – I think tonight was the first time he'd gotten all the pieces." House was stunned, and he wasn't an easily confounded man. That he hadn't sensed Wilson's suspicion was…but then again, he'd apparently been missing a lot of things where Wilson was concerned.

"Bastard," he muttered.

"Bastard?" Cameron voiced indignantly. "Oh yeah, _Wilson's_ the bastard. Not telling your best – hell your only friend that you could walk without a cane, without pain? Well now that's just normal. I mean, why the hell are you still walking with it anyway? To put on some sick show? Uphold the 'everybody lies' philosophy?"

"No." He felt anger rising in him. "I wanted to make sure that it would last. That I wouldn't give up the cane and have it end up like – like last time." She quieted a little at that. Perhaps he was supposed to take her silence as an apology, an offering. He snorted softly.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" He pursed his lips at her question. "Why do you do this? You always take away my choice. If you would have told me in Boston I would have-"

"You would have come back out of pity. Out of your eternal and misguided notion of who and what I am." He was becoming irate now. Take away _her_ choice?!

"So, what, you figure you'd lie to me and I'd come back out of…curiosity? Pity? It turns out I _did_ come back out of a misguided notion of who and what you are, so I guess that plan didn't work quite as well as you'd hoped, huh?"

"Well I knew you wouldn't dream of coming back unless I was damaged or dying. Damaged seemed easier to pull off on short notice." He bit down a little on his tongue with his back teeth after saying that. It wasn't that it was true – the point with them had never been about truth. It had been about knowing how they could hurt each other, knowing what was hopelessly untrue yet suggestive enough to sting.

Saying nothing, she slipped out of the bed, feet angrily padding toward the kitchen. Another one of those moments, he realized, was upon him. Earlier he'd dipped his toe in the water, allowing himself to have an inch of her, a moment. He wasn't one to think about tomorrows and "what if's" and "now what's." But _she_ was, he knew.

God, he hated change. He didn't do it well. And yet. Cuddy and Wilson had seemed normal to him all this time, though they'd obviously changed. He'd seemed normal all this time – maybe not to Wilson, but to everyone else – and he'd changed. He paused at that thought. _He'd changed_. No pain – well, no _physical_ pain. The old heaviness of his days had been lifted, and while that had seemed so novel at the beginning, it now seemed…normal.

He pushed back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. It couldn't hurt, he thought, to walk to the edge and peer down. Could it?

But he knew it would.

She leaned against the kitchen sink, feeling the edge push into her abdomen. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the counter. There wasn't even a window over it. How were you supposed to stand at the sink and contemplate if there wasn't even a damn window to look out of? She wondered what he thought about while doing dishes, immediately angry with herself for having the thought.

So much of her belonged to him. Her time, her thoughts, her diagnoses. Her decisions. She thought that she had gotten away from it for a while in Boston, that she had successfully run away from home as she'd once tried and failed to do. But looking back she realized that he had always been there – in the way she saw people, the way she approached a case, even the way she saw Richard. _At least he's not House_, she'd always told herself. Idiot.

She _felt_ more than heard him emerge from the bedroom. The silence as he walked – no more rhythmic limp – was maddening, a reminder of the reality of this moment they were having. Soon he stood right behind her. She could feel his breath, warm and steady against the bare back of her neck. Ever so slowly his long, muscular arms appeared on either side of her, bracing themselves on the counter top. Still he did not touch her. It was as though there was an invisible safety cushion of air between them.

Then again, that was what they _were_. Always close, never touching. Two steps apart. Three steps behind. Haunted by the past. Fearful of the future. Perpetually alone. He'd taken something from her, that first day they'd met. He'd taken her ability to live a life without him. All the "what if's" in the world would never change that, and so she was left with this inescapable paradox of a life.

She tensed suddenly and wondered why for the briefest of moments before feeling his lips gently graze her neck. The rigidity immediately melted away, but still she was careful to remain apart from him. Slowly, languorously he traced a delicate pattern over her skin. It reminded her of the steady trail she would make with her stethoscope on a patient's back when she checked their breathing. The stubble on his chin grazed her neck and she resisted the smirk that arose on her lips.

"I hate myself," she began softly, closing her eyes to better focus on his motions, "for needing this." He paused, breaking contact. Gradually she turned, mindful still of the invisible barrier. His eyes glinted in the glow of the snow coming from the window and she latched onto them with her own. She needed him to feel the weight of this, the weight she'd carried for so long now. "For wanting _you_," she finished.

For a beat his expression remained the same: thoughtful, absorbing. She sucked in a deep breath and was about to plot her next action when his hands slid off the counter, finally breaking the barrier as they curled against the side of her hips, fingers splaying across her back. All this happened in the blink of an eye, him tugging her the final inch closer before his lips covered her own.

Her eyes dropped closed at first, eyebrows raising in surprise. She felt relieved – thankfully relieved. It was something – _this_ was something. A path, finally. She didn't know or care where it would lead. He pulled back for a moment, searching out her eyes. She loved it – for all his arrogance and deceit, for all his manipulating and calculating, he would give her this last say, this final decision. Did he know, she wondered, that when it came to this she _had_ no decision. That neither of them did.

She leaned back in, keeping eye contact until her lips were centimeters from his. "Shut up," she murmured against his lips, satisfyingly feeling his own curl into a smile in reply. She felt the rational part of her mind slipping off line, instead concentrating on the feel of House's tongue sliding over her bottom teeth. They instinctively began to gravitate back toward the bedroom. Later she would remember it as a drunken dance – him pushing her backwards toward the door, then a quick turn around and her pushing him.

Eyes open, eyes closed. Sighs and whimpers. Discarded clothes. Fumbling and amusement. It was their release from the maze they'd built themselves. For her it was as much about _them_ – for in that moment they were a _them_ – as it was about herself, about finally letting go and feeling more in control than she had in a long time.

Later, what she would remember most would not be the height of their passionate and demanding forms coming together. It would instead be the exact moment following a blinding white ecstasy, the first moment she let actual thought slip back in. Her eyes meeting his and seeing the same reflected back at her. The quirk of his lips. A blink. And then, his lips grazing her forehead one last time. Perhaps he thought she needed absolution.

She would take it as a beginning.

_17, 18, 19…_

House counted the seconds before she would once again droopily open her eyes. She'd begun by closing them for a few seconds – _I need to rest them_, her eyebrows seemed to say. But they'd open again, revealing deep pools of (thankfully) little thought and much contentment. He smirked every time he remembered that he was the one responsible for that contentment.

But then her eyes began to remain closed for longer intervals. They would pop back open, a little alarmed. As though she were afraid it would all disappear if she wasn't careful. He almost resented how right she was. These last few times he'd been monitoring her breathing, checking to see if she had finally fallen asleep.

She lay on her side, facing him – but not touching. He'd been surprised by that. In all his years of Cameron picturing and contemplating, he'd always felt that "cuddly" had been a sure bet. Yet her acceptance – almost as though she understood his reluctance – was intriguing. He counted out two more minutes before finally sighing a little, allowing himself to gaze more openly at her.

She was young still, despite the fact that she'd had enough grief for several lives. He'd always liked that about her, though that quality had usually remained rather elusive where he was concerned. She was young and he had ruined what was left of her life. He hadn't quite destroyed her – yet. But he would, he knew. Eventually he would impose a grief on her so heavy that it would take away that youth. He'd seen it in Stacey. It was more than a heaviness – it was a permanent albatross on the spirit.

She would call him a naysayer. But he knew himself better than even she.

Carefully he brought his hand up to her face. It still seemed a little strange to touch her after all these years of a seemingly unspoken rule between them. Gently, almost weightlessly, he cupped her jaw in his hand. Blue eyes flashed open at him, her breathing remaining regular.

He was sure he looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and he hated her for that. He didn't know what to do, how to explain himself. She might expect this from him now, think that she had changed him in some way. But he wasn't _that guy_. He would never be. It was just this once. Just to see. And, damn it all to hell, she had to go and-

Soft and warm, her hand smoothly covered his for a moment, pushing it firmly against her cheek as her face nestled deeper into his palm. She sigh almost inaudibly, pressing the side of her lips against the inside of his wrist. Then, snaking her hand back to her side, her eyes fluttered closed once again. So. She would give him this.

He gazed at her, now unhappily, thumb grazing her impossibly velvet skin. She'd give him anything, he realized. Everything. She wouldn't be able to stop herself.

But he – he could.


	15. Chapter 14

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (14/?)  
**Characters:** Cameron/House  
**Spoilers**: None  
**Summary**: _She would always return._

_It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life was not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other things, the shadows – they were the realities.  
_"The Garden Lodge" – **Willa Cather**

It was the _smell_ her mind registered, before anything else. Foreign and musty, and was that a hint of cigar? She wasn't in her apartment. Where was she? In a second it all came back to her and she stilled, trying to control her breathing. The unfamiliar pillow her head rested on felt surprisingly cool and soft. Wiggling in what she hoped as a nearly imperceptive way – though she truly wondered if there _was_ imperceptive when it came to House – she realized she was wearing a t-shirt. She strained her ears to hear anything – his breathing, his blinking.

_Now or never_, she reasoned, unable to stop a wry smile from spreading across her face as she opened her eyes, expecting to see him across from her, fully awake and staring at her with a smirk. But the bed was vacant next to her, rumpled and abandoned. She shifted a little, turning toward the bedroom door. She couldn't hear the shower – but how the hell should she know what his shower sounded like?

She took a deep breath in through her nose, searching for the smell of food – any kind of food. Perhaps he'd gone out for something. Coffee, at least. _Stop_, her mind blared sharply. She draped her legs over the side of the bed, searching the floor for the pants she'd been wearing the night before. Pulling them on quickly, she soundlessly tiptoed out into the hall. Nothing.

She could feel her pulse quickening as she neared the kitchen, where it had begun and ended all at once. Gently she massaged the back of her neck as she searched the counters, the table, any and every surface for a sign. A note. Proof that he'd been here, that she hadn't imagined it all.

Glancing at the clock, she realized it was far too early for him to be at work – not that he'd even be expected in today. And then the reality of what was going on hit her like a cold-handed slap. She brought her hand to her lips for a moment, paralyzed. The next moment found her frantically discarding all that she was wearing – _his_ – and furiously collecting her things.

She slammed the door behind her on her way out, not knowing or caring if it was locked. Her car was in the same place she'd left it, however it was now covered in a few inches of snow. She bit back a frustrated moan of despair. She would _not_ throw a tantrum; she was not a child. She would just get something to brush the snow off and then be on her way.

As she stiffly swept the light snow off her windows, she felt a hot determination building inside of her. _You finally got to decide_, his voice rang out in her head. She pushed it back, but not too far.

Yes, she _had_ decided. But she wasn't finished yet.

House's eyes followed the ball on its path up into the air, then back down again, safely into his hands. It was rhythmic, soothing. He needed to come up with some new challenge. What was it Wilson was always saying? A new "skill to master." He frowned, realizing that Wilson had entered his thoughts.

That was the problem with having friends. Or, in his case, _a_ friend. When they finally did something stupid enough to make them completely undeserving of friendship – as all people inevitably did – odds are you would have to take them back if only because of the myriad ways their life had fused with your own.

He had always found pride in the fact that he knew he could live without Wilson. He didn't _need_ people. It was a wonderful feeling – freeing, even. But he had also always been faced with the small but very real truth that a part of him (most likely, in the grand scheme of things, a very small part, he liked to think) would just as soon _not_ live without Wilson. A part of him, in fact, was a little fond of the guy.

He'd accepted this (as he saw it) "human weakness" as another disappointing piece of evidence in his lack of deity status. He made himself feel better by promising to never look into it too deeply, to roll where the wind took their friendship without too much thought or effort. This attitude had thus served him well for years.

He gripped the ball lightly, holding it still for a moment, as he watched Wilson's unmistakable form pass his door. Was he holding his breath? God, one night with Cameron and he'd turned into some kind of freak. He watched as Wilson paused, dipping his head down in his trademark "wait just a minute" pose. Spinning on his heel, Wilson walked back to the door of House's office, pausing for another moment of thought before suddenly turning to face his friend.

There was a look of confusion on Wilson's face as he opened the door, letting himself inside. House sighed and resumed tossing his ball. This was already boring.

"You're here," Wilson said. House looked up at him in disdain. "_Why_ are you here? Something must be wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong." Wilson's gaze scanned the room, as though he were looking for clues. "I know you don't have a patient," Wilson continued. "What did you do?"

House looked away from his ball long enough to shrug and say, "I work here."

"That," Wilson said slowly, "is debatable." The silence carried on as Wilson's less-developed sense of mystery-solving worked overtime. "Okay," Wilson slowly drew out the two syllables, his focused yet uncertain gaze never leaving House. Reluctantly, he headed back towards the door.

"Sleep well last night?" House's anger mixed with an unwonted pang of bitterness. He didn't care. _He didn't care._

"I – yes." Wilson's stilted reply, non-evidence though it was, only served to heighten House's irritability.

"I bet," House said contemplatively, continuing his sharp scrutiny of Wilson. Wilson always seemed to be so attuned to House. The freak could discern House's motives, predict his actions – hell, Jimmy could even stop him from acting, on occasion. The man had power - more than he realized.

So why the hell, House wondered, had Wilson and Cuddy not anticipated being discovered? How could he not see now that House knew? It was too much – _this_ was too much. All this thinking, thinking about "feelings." It tired him. It agitated him. The puzzle was solved, the question answered. He needed to focus on the problem at hand.

"Well. I'm going to go actually _do_ my job," Wilson said, finally filling in the silence. He shuffled toward the door, a perplexed look on his face. Right before leaving, he turned back saying, "You're _sure_ nothing's wrong?"

House gazed at a point somewhere just past Wilson's head for a long, drawn out moment before tipping his head upward in the slightest of nods. He hoped it would be enough. Looking less than convinced, Wilson finally retreated. A feeling of liberation coursed through House for the briefest of moments. Finally! Now he could go back to –

He looked down at the ball in his hands as if seeing it for the first time. He watched as his arm suddenly flung it across the office, satisfied at the thump it made against the glass, disappointed when the window failed to shatter. (Shattering glass – that could be a new skill.) Wilson, Cuddy - he didn't _want_ any of them, when he really thought about it. So why did he keep them? Why did he follow her?

He _had_ wanted her in that moment the previous night. He'd wanted her and he'd acted on it and look at the mess he was going to be cleaning up now. He had to solve this puzzle, had to figure out what to do. But he couldn't think about it anymore, not when the thinking was so close to feeling. Sighing, he picked up a glass paperweight from his desk, shifting it from palm to palm. He eyed the door to his office thoughtfully.

She sat in her scrubs – pink, what a stupid color – knees drawn up to her chest, forehead pressed against the cool window as she looked out at the snow from her fourth floor office. The sun was already out in that way it always comes after a freak snowstorm: blindingly bright and insistent against a striking blue sky. _Snow? What snow?_, it seems to say.

For all its happy glaring, though, it wouldn't melt the perfect, velvet blanket of snow before her – this she knew from experience. Such heat, such intensity, powerless against the frigid winter temperature. _A paradox_, she thought wryly, shifting her head to a cooler spot on the window.

She had allowed herself 15 minutes of crying as she showered in the locker room, but that was all. She hadn't even been sure what or whom the tears were for. Perhaps, she thought, she was trying to wash away the night before, to erase its memory; but it wasn't erasure that she wanted. She wanted to cleanse herself of all the powerful, passionate feelings where _he_ was concerned.

If she was going to do what she was going to do, she needed to know that she'd be okay, no matter what the outcome. She needed to know that she would be able to survive without him – a fact her head understood, but one that her heart, fresh from a night with House, was having trouble comprehending let alone believing.

"Cameron?" The voice, so full of concern, jarred her out of her reverie. When she turned, revealing her bare face (still red around the eyes) to Wilson, she noted his widening eyes, his sharp intake of breath. God, she hadn't thought she'd looked _that_ bad. "Oh my God," he breathed softly, and she knew that he'd figured it out. Somehow, some way, he knew.

"Did House…?"

"Oh my God," he repeated again, sinking into a chair. His head was turned down, his eyes focused on the floor in disbelief.

"Oh please Wilson," Cameron attempted to shrug off his melodrama. "It was bound to happen sooner or later, you knew that. I'm-"

"You're what?" She hesitated in her answer.

"Not okay," she reluctantly relented after a time, resting her head on her knees.

"You want me to-"

"No," she said softly. The silence hung on them like a foretold and accepted burden. Cameron allowed herself to gaze at Wilson, noting with wry irony that while he would always empathize with her, he would forever be bound to _him_. "Wilson." He looked over at her expectantly. "Wilson, I think he knows about you – and Cuddy." She paused as his facial expression ran the gamut from shocked to defensive. "And mind you, I'm not claiming to know any better. But really, at this point I think you'd have to be blind not to see it."

Wilson's face melted into a bittersweet mixture of happiness and earnest apprehension. "You just…it's just…you never stop wanting to save him, you know? From himself. From the pain, the past. It seems so easy, in your mind."

"I don't want to save him," she replied. "I just…can't leave him." Across the darkened office sympathy and empathy mingled in their gazes. She marveled that one man could hold such a power over otherwise strong, capable people while at the same time continually and consistently pushing them away.

She was friends with Wilson because of House. He had been the one she'd kept in touch with, but House was the one to whom she had returned. If Wilson ultimately failed in his goal of saving House, he would recover, she felt. He would have Cuddy, his patients, the passion for medicine with which he had begun. He would forever bemoan his disappointment, his failure, but he would recover.

She would not.

"I'm going to go talk to him."

"Wilson, you don't have to-"

"I _should_. _Someone_ should. He thinks – he's always thought – he can go around doing whatever he wants, no consequences. But I don't believe, I won't believe, that's what he wants. I think he pushes and pushes to see how far he can go before-"

"He didn't push Wilson." Her words stopped him mid-tirade. "He didn't push. I came back and I decided to take this step and…" She kicked her feet down from the windowsill, facing Wilson squarely. "He can't figure out why I'm here and it's pissing him off. It's terrifying him. You always warned me not to break him, and I've been faithful to you. But…I never thought…I honestly never thought he would have the power to break me. And isn't that ridiculous? All those years. Everything I saw. I'm a fool, Wilson. But I can't help it. It's him."

He listened with wide eyes and a serious expression. When she finished, he nodded slowly. She was unsure whether he was agreeing with her or merely acknowledging that she had spoken her peace, but it was no matter. He rose wearily, pausing at the door on his way out.

"When you left…he was…I'd never seen him quite like that. It was all under the surface, nothing big. But I thought, if there is ever to be a time…I thought he would go after you. I thought something, _anything_, might change. And then it didn't. Life turned into something else, something vaguely new but similar to the old."

"Before," she countered, "I didn't give him a choice. He pretty much didn't give me one either. And _this_, now…I'm not sure it could have been a choice, on either of our parts. But what comes next – I'm going to make it a choice. His choice." She paused, running a hand through her still damp hair, fatigued. "You kept him alive all this time, you know. He'll never say thank you, but I will." She gave a small smile, the corners of her mouth mildly turning up.

He bowed his head forward as though both acknowledging and absorbing her words before continuing on his path out of her office. Wilson would fight for his friend, she knew. She just hoped that House would fight for himself as well.

It had been a long day. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum hadn't shown up despite repeated threatening phone calls. The hospital was nearly empty of interesting patients and House was nearly empty of potential distractions from his mess of a life. He'd finally resorted to playing an old video game when Wilson stormed into the office, glass door banging with a dangerous pang and him looking more perplexed than usual.

"How could you do that to her?" he blurted out. House was still except for his eyes which darted up to Wilson in sharp annoyance.

"So she's been talking, huh? Telling big bad daddy what a horrible date she had."

"Of course not," Wilson spat back, "But you can see it just by looking at her. You bestow a certain kind of look, House, on people you _break_." House narrowed his eyes, trying to refocus on the game. Had she sent Wilson to berate him? Was she hoping that he would fold and come coo and coddle her? Fat chance.

"It's time you tell me what the hell is going on here," Wilson continued. The cheerful video game music of loss chimed in response, causing House to toss the game haphazardly across his desk.

"'Feelings time' already? Darn it, I'm going to have to sit this one out today. I brought a note from my mom though."

"Your _vacation_," Wilson was like a scrappy dog guarding a rare bone. House dreaded what was to come; these inane cycles of human interaction were why he tried to avoid it at all costs. "Where did you go?"

"You know where I went," House said darkly.

"I want to hear you say it." Wilson was jutting his chin out in that self-righteous way of his, hands planted on his hips as though he was hunkering down for a battle. House decided to see how far inaction would carry him this time. "How could you not tell me? Why wouldn't you- I mean, my god, we're not talking about your hookers or the drugs or even Stacy. We're talking about your _leg_. How could you not tell me that?"

"The same way you failed to mention that you're banging my boss." House jutted his chin forward mockingly, wincing his eyes in a sarcastic mimicry of deep thought. Though Wilson didn't seem stunned at House's knowledge – he probably had Cameron to thank for that – he did seem all at once lost in their argument. Seeing the slight opportunity, House pounced. "Did you think _I_ wasn't going to find out? Or were you going to screw her, marry her, divorce her, and _then_ tell me all about it?" He paused, searching deep for more ammunition. Finding it, he rose from his chair and walked toward Wilson – notably, without his cane.

"What must you have on her? Or am I getting it wrong and it's the other way around? Have you been a very naughty doctor? Maybe you've become morally awakened and sworn yourself off _admitted_ whores. Or maybe you're just running a little low on cash and needed a place to get it for free."

"House," Wilson's voice was uncharacteristically sharp and pleading at the same time. Bulls-eye.

"Because if it is that, I'll tell you, there are a hell of a lot of women in this hospital alone who require half the effort and are more compliant without all that incessant whining."

"House, shut the hell up!" Wilson boomed, lunging at him a little. They stood toe to toe for a moment, House calmly deflecting Wilson's penetrating gaze. Taking a step to the side, House maneuvered around him in pitying triumph. "You're going to lose her," Wilson intoned quietly, his head bowed now. He'd reverted back to his original reason for coming, back to his words of Truth that he was so fond of spurting haphazardly.

"Though I don't even know if you care. You must care something. You went all that way to get her. I've no idea why. This must seem like a game to you, all these years." He walked toward the door, glancing up at House's self-standing form with a look of simple happiness for his friend buried under his anger and their many current realities.

"If it is," he said softly, "it's ending, House. You know, change can come from _inaction_ as well as action."

She took a deep, calming breath and peeked around the corner, through a slit in the blinds, into his glass domain. He was leaning back in his chair, eyes lightly closed, hands tapping unconsciously against the arm rests as he listened to his iPod. It was a strangely comforting sight to her in that moment.

The door was unusually propped open in an inviting fashion, and she moved to its threshold, leaning against the frame as she continued her observation of him. A minute ticked by, and then, in that languidly naturalistic way of his that always screamed so annoyingly of his _awareness_, House opened his eyes which looked as though they'd been focused on her the entire time. Wordlessly, he switched off his music, removing the ear buds. The thought that he'd been waiting for her, for _this_, flitted in her mind for the briefest of moments.

"Why did you come for me?" Her voice sounded stronger than she thought it would as it carried across the sparse office into his conscious. He remained motionless – perhaps he thought her words would bounce off him. She slowly made her way to the chair at the side of his desk, gingerly placing herself in it as she'd done a million times before. Though his body remained unmoving, she noted the discomfort in his darting gaze the nearer she came.

"Why did you come back?" he countered, shifting finally in his chair, edging it away from her slightly. He was studying her now, a hint of confusion bending the corners of his eyes. She would bet anything that he had expected her to come in hysterical, or at least sniffling and desperate. How she relished being his unexpected. A corner of her lips quirked up.

"You asked me," she replied levelly, "And, hard as I try, I can't say no." His eyes were blazing away once again, betraying his pleasure at being entangled in a puzzle once again. Was it possible that, over the years, she'd won some kind of respect for herself by never quite conforming to the neat boxes he was forever putting her in?

"I knew," she began, wanting to give him something, "I knew that Richard and I weren't going to last. I knew that when you showed up, even if I hadn't admitted it to myself yet. But then, I don't know that I _would_ have admitted it if you hadn't shown up. Richard loves me, in his way – he does. And it was so…refreshing – _freeing_ – to just be wanted. To not be _needed_."

He had turned his head away from her somewhat and seemed to be gazing off into another world, but at this he snorted a little and eyed her sideways. She quirked an eyebrow, as interested in his curiosity as he was indeed curious.

"I know, I know. I'm supposed to need damaged people to fix in order to feed my own damaged persona and all that," she said tiredly. "I know that's what you think, what you've always thought. But I had that need in my life once. David _needed_ me. And it was exhausting, somehow almost _binding_. I don't want that. And maybe you were a little right all those years ago, maybe I used to be a little attracted to the damaged. But if I was, it was only to find a solution to my own query."

"Richard loves me, yes, but more than that, he _wants_ me. He doesn't need me. He has his work, his precious, prosperous work; he has his big-shot friends. I always knew I could leave him at any time and he would be okay."

"Oh, please," House muttered, rolling his eyes as he finally broke his silence.

"What?" she protested. "You don't think so? I've done it. I've left him. And he hasn't even called."

"All that crap you just said? You can't have that without need. He can't want you – can't know what it's like to have you – and then not need you." House's gaze turned down once again, avoiding her own self-consciously. "Fifty bucks says the _minute_ he figures that out, he's on a plane, at your door-"

"-coming to get me?" she finished softly. His narrowed eyes darted up toward her own as he clenched his jaw. Abruptly she rose and paced slowly in front of his desk. She wasn't nervous about what she was going to say, but she did need a little distance between them in order to say it.

Since she had walked into the room, she'd felt the pull from last night, though it seemed a little far off and in the background. She'd gotten good at repression over the years, she realized with a dull sting. Still, seeing his hands and his lips, knowing that just beneath the collar of his shirt lay a mark of her making – it was coming at her in waves now, sweeping her toward an edge over which lie some form of the hysteria that House had been expecting. But there she would not go.

"I'm going to leave, House." His face was filled not with the disappointment of losing her, but instead with the disappointment of her tediously fulfilling his predictions. "I'm going to leave and this time I'm not going to come back. Even if you come. Even _when_ you come." The smirk was wiped off his face almost, it seemed, before it appeared. He didn't believe her. "I won't come back because this time it's going to be your choice if I leave."

He looked up at her warily now, and she wondered if he was really so tired of them, of all _this,_ as he always made himself out to be. He could have stopped it – truly stopped it – years ago. But he had instead hung on, at times almost imperceptively. Perhaps in his twisted, logical world it was the equivalent of hope.

"Either ask me to stay or tell me to leave House. At this point I can still take either, but I won't dance between them anymore. This has to end, one way or another, and it has to be done by you so that I'll have the power to not look back." Satisfied that she'd accomplished her small goal, she walked back to where he sat still, on the opposite side of the desk.

Tentatively, unsure of so much but hopeful of this one thing, she reached out her hand to the side of his face. He pursed his lips, just short of wincing at her touch, but he didn't stop her. Gently she bent forward, her hair brushing his shoulder, and she pressed her lips against his head. "I leave in two days," she muttered. "If I don't hear from you by then, it means you want me to leave."

The pull of the previous night was now dizzying her a little, and she fought against the tide in order to draw her hand away from his face. She walked a straight path to the door, counting the steps until her release, when his voice called her back.

"Cameron." It was reluctant, forced. He was going to hate this, she knew, but at the same time she felt that it was the only way. "Don't go," he said grudgingly. He looked as though he were pulling his appendix out through his throat, saying the words was that difficult and distasteful. She tried to give him a bittersweet smile, but fell just short.

"Not good enough," she breathed softly, the words of the past grounding them more fully in their seemingly endless cycle. "You've never wanted me to go," she shrugged. "But then, you've never wanted me to _stay_ either." She shook her head a little, before turning and escaping quickly into the cool emptiness of the hallway.

Endings were difficult; beginnings more so.


	16. Chapter 15

**Title**: And Unto Him She Shall Return (15/15)

**Characters:** Cameron/House

**Spoilers**: None

**Summary**: _She would always return._

**a/n:** Thank you all so much for the comments! Each brightened my day and kept me going to finish this!

_There's no use deceiving_

_Neither of us want to be alone_

"Lonelily" – **Damien Rice**

The next morning, when Wilson went to let himself into his office, he found the door unlocked. He proceeded with caution, finding the lights out and at first glance perceiving things to be generally in order. His sizable desk chair was facing away from the door, and he strained to better hear the faint sound of someone else's breathing.

Eyes widened in alarm, he bit his bottom lip as he silently dropped his bag, glancing around him for something to use as a defensive tool. Gingerly settling on the spare umbrella hanging on his coat rack, he crept noiselessly toward the chair. He wasn't sure what he was going to do after reaching his destination, but he figured that he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. In about four seconds.

"Put down the umbrella you idiot," House's distinctive scratchy voice drawled as he indolently turned the chair around. Wilson's jaw dropped as his arms fell limply to his sides.

"Wha- how did you know?"

"Reflection in the glass you moron," House muttered in reply. He was twirling Wilson's pen – one of his _good_ pens – between his fingers idly.

"Why the hell are you breaking into my office? If you have something to say to me, why can't you just come talk to me like a normal person?" At House's confused, inquisitive expression, Wilson relented with pressure-releasing chortle. "Why am I even saying this?" he mused to himself. He busied himself with removing his coat as House scrutinized him.

"We slept together once, you know," he said, as if testing the waters. Confused for a moment about whom House was referring to, Wilson stilled.

"I'm not interested in continuing this conversation from yesterday," Wilson said firmly.

"Whoa there Jimmy," House seemed a little surprised at Wilson's firmness. He paused a little – a sure sign that he was working up to something else. "I'm not here about that."

"What a relief," Wilson chimed in sarcasm. House shot him a look of veiled disdain that didn't quite manage to cover his troubled anxiousness. He restlessly rose from Wilson's desk to stand near the bookcase, absently running his fingers through the thin layer of dust. Wilson started once again at the sight of House moving about sans cane. It gave the metaphor in his mind of past and future colliding such an appropriate visual representation.

He took the now vacant seat behind his desk, reorganizing the objects House had moved. As he waited for House to speak he marveled for what seemed like the infinite time at the twisted nature of their friendship. The episode from yesterday, the things House had said – all were now brushed aside in House's mind, as easily as if they'd meant nothing. Wilson wondered why he was okay with this time and again without fail; he wondered what it said about him.

As always, before he could wonder too deeply, House said cryptically, "I'm thinking of doing something. But it's…" He trailed off, and moved to sit in front of Wilson's desk. "What did she say to you?" Wilson replied with a depreciating look and a silent snicker. "Alright, fine." He tapped the edge of Wilson's desk and his motions heightened once again the absence of his cane. "She's leaving."

"I know," Wilson said slowly, his head pointed down at his desk, his eyes peering up at the mentally distant House.

"I wanted to see if I'd _changed_." The last word came out as a bitter taste in his mouth. "Wanted to see if _she_ would notice. If it would last." His eyes darted around, unseeing – as if he wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, so that later he could plausibility claim deniability concerning his utterances. House rose once again, this time heading for the door to their shared balcony.

"Why don't you just-" Wilson called after him. But when House turned, finally revealing the expression on his face, Wilson stopped cold. He'd changed? Not _that_ much after all. "Look, I know this all seems mentally impossible for you, too riddled with change to be worth any kind of effort or struggle. But even at the very worst you'd come out better than before: you can walk."

House nodded a little, then turned and opened the door. "That's what's weird," he muttered. "It's me, but it's not just-" Leaving his thought unfinished, he continued out the door, into the melting slush.

"Got a second?" Cameron asked, poking her head through Wilson's slightly ajar door.

"Of course," he said genially. As she sunk into the plush leather chair, she marveled at the ease with which she slipped back into former habits. It was years since they'd had a chat like this, though it seemed only days. Phone conversations and e-mails couldn't compete with the background of Wilson's subdued bookshelves and menagerie of cancer patient gift trinkets.

She tried not to fidget, but found herself twisting a ring on her right hand. She looked down at it, glad for the reminder. She'd dug it out of one of the unpacked boxes this morning, slipped it onto her finger for the first time in years. It had glided on in an effortlessly smooth stroke, pissing her off. The past should not come back to us that easily, she'd thought. Glancing up at Wilson, she silently willed him to speak.

"Still…leaving?" She waited a beat, expecting something more.

"That's the best you can do?" she said, wincing in mock disappointment. He faintly smiled, breathing out something between a sigh and a chuckle. "You remember when we used to just…say whatever we wanted to about him here? How you thought we should do weekly sweeps for bugs?"

"Not weekly," he muttered in meek protestation, earning a bemused look of reflection from her in return.

"It's times like these I wish he was right about all that 'nothing ever changes' crap," she said softly. She could sense Wilson's hesitation, his uncertainty about what to say, why she'd come, or where her thoughts lie. She wished that she could help him – desperately so – for if she could give _him_ a clue, might she not come closer to understanding herself? "He said…he said you can't _want_ someone without _needing_ them. That the two are somehow integral parts of each other."

"Well," he drew out the word, brow furrowed. "I _want_ to eat a gallon of ice cream a day, but I certainly don't _need_ to." She shot him a worried look.

"You want to eat a gallon of ice cream a day?"

"It's an example," he sighed, peering up at her from under that furrowed dark brow.

"But it's not people. His argument was _people_ who want each other need each other." She paused, twisting the ring once more. "Do you…do you need Cuddy?" Wilson's face as he looked up in surprise was so open and calmly _happy_ that she couldn't help breaking into a soft smile.

"I –," he stopped, as if considering the issue for the first time and so wanting to cover all the angles. "Yes." He seemed both amazed and pleased with himself all at once. Coming down from his cloud, he took in her expectant face and added, "I guess I didn't…_know_ it until I…wanted her. But I-" He brought a hand up to his chin, cupping it in a posture of deep thought. "But I guess I always did. Huh."

"I didn't need my husband," she admitted in a low voice. Wilson gazed at her intently.

"Well then, I guess the question is: did you _want_ him?"

"I _married_ him," she replied in a slightly irritated tone of exasperation.

"So…you wanted him until death did you part?" Cameron glared at what she perceived to be his audacity. She was about to protest when he cut her off by saying, "Are you saying that you wanted _forever_ with him?" Her gaze retreated back to one of contemplation. Years – many years – later and she still had trouble facing the answer to that question.

"I think," Wilson continued tentatively, "that he went after you that day because you're…you're like a litmus test for him." Bemused, she urged him to go on with a small shake of the head in confusion. "He knows how to get the truth from you. You're like some kind of constant for him. Usually the leg and the pain are the constants, but this time…so he needed you. To check."

Far from feeling enlightened, she scrunched up her face a little, rising from the chair. For once she didn't want to tell Wilson everything, didn't want him to know that she truly had no idea how she was going to leave yet again, how she was going to stay away. She heard herself mumble a thanks, say something mundane about him and Cuddy but her thoughts remained locked on a single moment of expressed need that had been answered with surprising tenderness and equal desire.

She had somehow been granted access to something in House that night that she'd never been able to fully get at before. And now she was to give it up. But better now, she thought, then after having made it part of herself. Better now when all she had to forget were his handprints on her skin. Better now before he would have time to leave new scars on her heart.

"Cameron," Wilson called out as she reached the door. "He thinks he doesn't need people. But you and I both…what I mean to say is that yes, he needed someone to be his litmus test. He could have gone after…he could've gone after a number of people. But he went after – he wanted _you_." He paused, standing up and moving to join her at the door. "His life has been relatively the same for how many years? And now, within a short time, the center of what his life has been has vanished. He's gonna cling to anything and everything else left from that life in order to avoid change."

"I don't expect him to change who he is," she protested, "Why does no one _ever_ believe me when I say that?"

"I'm just asking you to…to think about giving him some time."

"How _much_ time Wilson?" she sighed, blue eyes searchingly meeting brown. "Forever?" A ghost of a tragically sardonic smile graced her face once more as she slipped through the door into the long, empty hallway.

House felt like a mouse sniffing around a trap filled with poisoned cheese as he rounded the corner and Cameron's office came into view. His hand squeezed the air, searching for his cane.

"Damn it," he muttered. He'd been doing it all day. That cane had become like an extended fifth limb over the years, not just making up for the leg, but providing a plethora of added bonuses, the lack of which House was having a hard time adjusting to. And yet, how could he complain about no longer having to use the cane? It was a perfect paradox of misery.

He crept closer to her office, gingerly inching his head into the doorway to survey the room. She was half-sitting on her desk, gazing out the window at nothing. Her hair was pulled back in that no nonsense way she utilized during tougher than usual cases and in instances of extreme annoyance with House. _Good_, he thought. And it _was_ good. If she could be annoyed with him, then-

But he wouldn't think that just now. He'd follow the plan, the script he'd written in his mind. Silently entering the room, he said softly and pointedly, "So, was it the leg?"

Though he carefully observed her, he noted no sign of surprise, no dawning of awareness at the sound of his voice. She merely lowered her eyes from the window to the wall before replying in a tired, placating voice, "Was what the leg?"

"Why you left. Before. Not the first time – that was because of your 'feelings feelings deep inside.' But this last time…"

"Did I leave because of your leg?" She was looking at him now, finally, her face scrunched up in confusion.

"Yeah. Maybe you decided to do a one-eighty and only go for _non_-damaged guys. Would also explain why you came back."

"Except I didn't know about your leg when I agreed to come back, remember? You lied to everyone, including your best friend and boss, allowing them to believe that you were still suffering from a debilitating disability when in fact you had been healed."

"Well yeah, but have you seen my parking spot?" Her face softened at his sarcastic barb and he felt a tinge of…_something_. She appeared lost in her thoughts for some time, and House began to worry that he might have to say more.

"I left…because I was afraid." She looked down at her hands while she spoke and he noticed her fingers twisting a ring he'd never seen before. "Do you remember – what am I saying? You remember everything. Joel. Dr. Grey. When he – when I – that was the beginning. It was the beginning of – I didn't want to be you, House, at the end of the day, I didn't want to _be you_. A better doctor, yes, but I found myself trying to – and I think it was because I thought I could somehow reach you that way. Like maybe if I were on the other side – on your side – you'd finally…_see_ me."

He watched her bring her hand up to her mouth, gently trace her lips. She was lost in thoughts again after her outburst, lost in memories that House could now guess at because they were his too. He wouldn't think too hard just now about what she'd said – he couldn't. Not if he wanted to keep his resolve anyway.

"I was wrong," she said softly, meeting his eyes. He could feel her letting go of him in a way he never had before, and it bothered him. "I was wrong, and I'm sorry." It was all he could do dip his head once in a nod.

Maybe he'd been wrong. Well, not _wrong_, but…you know. To keep her all those years. To let her become more like him – hell, to _help_ her become more like him. He'd known what was going on. He, who saw things that no one else could, had watched her walk that thin rope in the air, knowing how far she had to fall. And maybe that had been his own, selfish, cruel form of hope – letting her do that.

Maybe so.

But they were both on the ground now, he for the first time in years. It was shaky at best, and he still woke every morning with the fear that it would drop out from under him once again. He wondered if she felt it too. If she would really walk away. If he would let her.

The sun had melted the snow on the sidewalks into a thick slush and it was through this that Cameron trudged on the way to her apartment. She gave a little snort at the thought of her newly leased residence. She'd finally found the perfect place in Princeton – a feat she had attempted many times in the past without success – and she was going to end up ditching it after a few days.

It was an irony only House could love.

She paused a moment, in the middle of the sidewalk, as it all hit her again. House. Their night. Her ultimatum. The fact that she was here at all. Her mental safeguards had been working overtime in her repeated denial of reality, and every time she realized again the exact situation she was in, she had to catch her breath.

She had been certain before when he had appeared in her office that he was going to tell her to leave. She dreaded it but at the same time clung to a faint and most likely imagined notion of closure that she told herself would be enough. And then he hadn't. He'd left as wordlessly as he'd come and she was now faced with carrying out the tougher half of her challenge – accepting silence as a edict to leave.

"Ali, thank God!" Her head snapped up and she took in Richard's overcoat clad form coming toward her. Her mouth hung open a little and she squinted, trying to piece together her reality once again. Richard _had_ left, hadn't he? That hadn't just been in her mind. House's prophesy rang in her ears as Richard continued to talk.

"What?" she managed to get out.

"I said didn't you get my phone messages?" Richard queried. "Your super wouldn't let me into the apartment – actually, I'm pretty sure he now thinks you've got an abusive boyfriend hunting you down." He waited a moment – for a smile? – and then added, "I play the role of the abusive boyfriend in this scenario."

"Richard, what are you doing here?"

"Ali, don't say anything for a minute, okay? Just – just listen, hear me out. I know that's asking more than I've done for you lately, but…Ali, I got half-way home when I realized that I…I have to have you in my life. You help me tick. You…you drive me mad sometimes. But I even – I guess I even need that." He grinned and she felt her features soften in the face of his good will.

"I know we said horrible things to each other. I know you think I'm an idiot for being jealous of House – hell, _I_ think I'm an idiot for being jealous of House. But Ali, you can't give up on this, you just can't. I want us to make a life together – we had plans to make a life together Ali, you and me. One life. Whatever I've done, whatever I've said – I was an idiot Ali. Because that's all there is, you and me." He paused, as though reviewing his speech for anything he might have left out. Finally he shrugged a little, the all-knowing half grin that had drawn her to him the first time they met emerging slyly.

"Till death do us part, Ali. Though I don't know if I deserve that from you. But just the same, I'm offering it – me. Everything I have, anything I can do. And you don't have to answer everything now. I just want to know – I need to know if you think – if you want to – try."

She looked down into the soupy snow at her feet. The lawn a few yards away was still covered in what looked to be a solid layer of snow – the kind of snow that was perfect for snowballs and snowmen. She frowned at that snow, wanting to plunge her foot through its pristine crust, to test if it was as solid as it looked. For the sun had shone on it all day too, hadn't it?

"Ali?" Richard pulled her from her thoughts, back into reality. The reality where one smart, handsome doctor was offering her tomorrow, while another was freeing her from yesterday.

He wondered if she was paying for heat. Of course she was paying for heat – she wouldn't pay for an apartment with no heat. Would she? How had she slept here last night? It was so damn cold that he felt his leg stiffening. A pain shot through him. When it reached his leg, an icicle of fear formed in his heart. _Normal_, he had to remind himself. It was a normal reaction to this fucking bitter cold. That was the type of person he was now, one who had _normal_ reactions.

He wasn't sure he liked that.

Leaning back against Cameron's couch, he surveyed her darkened apartment. The couch, unlike the stuffed armchair across the room, had its plastic sheet removed, and he wondered if she'd slept on it the night before. He saw her suitcase propped on top of a stack of boxes, open and picked through. Only one of the boxes was open, its contents scattered haphazardly on the floor around it, as though she'd torn through the box in haste.

The fact that he'd broken into her apartment didn't weigh on his mind as much as the _ease_ with which he'd broken in did. She was going to have to find someplace safer to live if she stayed. (_If she stayed._) The thought echoed in his mind, drawing him back to his purpose in coming.

It was crazy, he knew. Insane and selfish. Well, he wasn't entirely sure about the selfish part. He had pushed Stacey away "for her own good," and Wilson had called him on his selfishness. So, he'd have to check with Wilson on this one before making an official decision. Being with Cameron would, in the end, probably fuck both of them up beyond salvation. But the great thing was that he no longer cared.

If she wanted to walk down this path with him, who was he to stop her? She said she couldn't help coming back. Well, if this thing ended in misery, she'd have that problem solved at least. And if it turned out then that he couldn't have _her_, at least he'd have his misery to languish in. The old. The familiar.

Then again.

He wasn't sure how to do this. In fact, he was pretty sure there was an entire side to _this_ that he was avoiding. He might have lived with the avoidance, however, if the phone hadn't gone off. The fact that Cameron somehow had a phone and phone service in her new apartment, but no heat, was so emblematic of _her_ that he found himself snickering, even as the automated voice of her answering machine instructed the caller to leave their message.

"Ali," the voice of the weasel bleated. On and on he rambled about mistakes and need and love. He "couldn't live" without her. He'd "do anything" to set it all right. House's sneer slowly shifted into a grimace as the dingbat's speech went on. Fake as this loser was, he'd genuinely fallen under Cameron's spell, that was evident.

In a striking moment of selfless clarity, House found himself wondering why the hell he thought he had more of a right to Cameron than the Dick. He couldn't claim to be the better man. The better doctor? Sure. But not the better man. He couldn't claim anything like wanting what was best for Cameron. And the word "future" was nowhere to be found in the lexicon of _Them_.

The original resolve he'd formed the other night after they'd slept together slowly crept back into his thoughts. It consumed him, roaring in his ears relentlessly against the silence of the room. Minutes alternately dragged on and sped by as he contemplated leaving. She most likely deserved something more, but life had never quite given _him_ what he deserved, and who was he to set the scales right? His torrent of thoughts continued, muddying any clear, logical plans his mind tried to organize. It could not, however, drown out the sound of a key turning in the lock, the gentle sweep of the door as it opened.

He looked up as she entered, feeling wholly unprepared, frustrated at his lack of control. She did not immediately see him, for after letting herself in and closing the door she rested her forehead against it, back facing him, while she breathed an enormous sigh. She slumped against the door a little, dropping her bag carelessly by her feet and he began to worry that she was crying. He had enough right now – he didn't need crying in the mix.

She breathed a more determined sigh and, standing straight, turned toward him. The moonlight, which caught the nuances of repressed hope in her shocked expression, also granted him relief at the sight of her tearless face. She said nothing, though he felt her mind searching for a beginning to the conversation – the confrontation – that they were about to have.

"You…broke…into…my apartment." She seemed more surprised at her lack of foresight than the actual deed. Or so he chose to interpret.

"Well, I didn't have a key," he said, "And waiting in hallways isn't really my thing." He was frustrated by the level of appeasement in his tone and in what he was saying. He was being kind, he was being…pedestrian. It wasn't Them. Not for a moment like this, it wasn't.

"What are you doing-"

"I came to tell you to go." It was through sheer willpower that he didn't wince at the inanity of his own words, at their desperate undertone. She narrowed her eyes.

"You came here, broke into my apartment, and waited God knows how long to tell me to do something that I was going to do anyway, even if you'd done nothing at all?" He looked at her, face expressionless as possible. So she knew him. A bit. He knew her better.

"Wanted to make sure you'd do it." Though she kept up her icy exterior well – he would give her that – he could see the small pang of pain he'd caused. He watched it ripple through her, half fascinated as she firmly kept it from her guarded surface. Good – if she was going to detach herself, it would make it easier for him to do so as well.

"You're a bastard, House," she said softly, and he knew it wasn't what she meant to say. She meant to say a hundred other, sad, things – arrows that would pierce him the way she knew he could pierce her. But he also knew that, _being_ her, she couldn't – wouldn't – take herself there. "Just get out."

He nodded a little, looking around for where he'd set his gloves. As he bent to pick them up, he caught sight of the answering machine, its blinking red light validating his actions. He glanced over at Cameron who had turned away from him, arms crossed tightly. "You got a message…uh…while you were gone," he said simply before noiselessly heading for the door.

"Wait," her voice echoed off the walls. He could feel a shift in her posture, even without seeing her. He stiffened, but did as she commanded. He heard her walk up behind him, footsteps sharp against the cold silence. "Look at me." He turned to find an accusatory look on her face, eyes squinted slightly. "Richard. You heard my message from Richard."

House hesitated. There were too many unknowns at this point. The situation was, he felt, about to veer off course. He shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. How should I know? Some fool babbling incessantly – probably him. By the way, I think you owe me some money." His attempt to deflate the intensity of the moment had an opposite effect as Cameron took a determined step forward.

"Everyone lies," she said, a weary yet eerily calm look on her face.

He was screwed. There was now only one way out.

"Ah, and now the conversion is complete. Congratulations, sorry there's no diploma. Now go forth and antagonize people," he quipped. His words blurred together for her, however, as she focused on his jaw, on the way his mouth quirked upwards. It had been a moment – one stupid failure of thought on his part, but through that one inadvertent crack she'd seen enough.

"You didn't come here to tell me to go," she said, gaining certainty with every word. "House, you didn't come here to tell me that."

"Cameron," he warned. She felt him draw back, add another layer – but it was, for once, too late.

"You came here to ask me to _stay_," she breathed, still a little in awe. She looked away for a moment, gathering her thoughts in the face of this unexpected development. She began to realize just how much she had pushed hope from her mind, how deep she'd buried what she wanted but thought she'd never have. "Why?" She triumphantly noted how her question caught him off guard.

"How did you know it was Richard who left the message?" he countered.

"I saw him outside," she began openly. She would hold nothing back now. She would fight, yes, but as herself. And this time, if he walked away, it would truly be because of her. "You were right. He came back, came after me. Wants me to forgive him, to go back with him. To marry him."

"So?"

"So?" she smiled helplessly. "So, I don't love him!" House rolled his eyes, looking greatly unimpressed. "You see this?" She held up her right hand, clad in a simple gold ring. "I dug this up and wore it today – today of all days – to remind me of something. To remind me of a time when I did what I _should_. When I cared more for others than I did for myself. I won't do that again House. Not now, not this time."

"Don't be an idiot Cameron. Love – love is for fools, for masochists. He can give you a life."

"A life? What kind of life? You're not listening to me: I don't love him!"

"Oh stop being a child. He can give you things."

"Like what?"

"Things. Marriage. A home. Children. A future." House ticked off the list so neatly that it gave her pause and she found herself searching for breath.

"Things…things that _you_ can't give me. Is that what you're trying to say?" He looked slightly uncomfortable and a little pissed at her pointed question. "House, who says I even _want_ those things?" She instinctively reached out a hand toward his arm, but he equally instinctively recoiled, giving her pause.

"You will," he said. His voice was gravelly and low, his eyes intensely locked onto her own. _I know this_, they said, _I know you._ She felt herself losing ground.

"You _don't_ know that," she insisted. Desperation began to tug at her as she watched and felt House begin to detach himself. That was how he would win, she knew. Even if it went against what he wanted, he would do it to punish himself. To save her. "And even if I did want…things…some day, how do you know?"

"Know what?" He was tired, resigned. The inclination to beg, to plead surged in her. Something she promised herself she would never do – for him or anyone – ever again. The feeling terrified her, increasing her desire to fight now not only for him, but for herself. She took another step forward, running her arms up his chest, over his shoulders, and cupping his face in her hands. He tried to fidget and brush her off, but she was determined.

"How do you _know_ you can't give those things?"

"Cameron." One simple word he kept saying, yet she could read the paragraphs behind it every time. There was admonishment in his voice, disappointment that she would be so foolish to even ask such a question.

"No," she caressed his face slightly with her thumb, "No, I don't believe that. As much as I don't know what I want, you don't know what you can give."

"I know."

"No. Maybe you've just never been asked before."

"I've been asked."

"Not by me."

"I know what you're asking."

"No you don't. _I_ don't. That's just it. I don't _know_ what forever _means_ House. I never have. I just know that every time I leave here, every time I leave you, I return again and again. I don't come back for the hospital, I don't come back for the patients. I come back for you. And I hate it! I hate myself for doing it."

"Then why do you?" He was engaged again, and she subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time, she could glimpse a kind of victory. It was frightening. It was breathtaking.

"The same reason you can't push me away," she said softly, "Even though you can't ask me to stay." For the briefest of moments she saw a struggle in him. And then suddenly his hands were pulling her hands firmly down, away from him. His gaze shifted to the side.

"Go, Cameron. Go." Her mouth opened the slightest as she bowed her head, trying to control the dizzy feeling she was experiencing. It took a moment for his words to register, and another for her to vow that she would not end this night with anything but strength to match his own.

"Fine. Fine, but you first look at me – look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me. Tell me you came for me that day because you were bored or curious or out of some sick need to stop other people from being happy. Tell me!"

"Cameron." There was that one word again. This time it was full of pity – a pity that almost made her sick. Like a bucket of cold water or a slap to the face, it gave her pause, slowed down time.

Not saying anything more, not even venturing to look at him, she walked to the door. She put her shaking hand on the doorknob, clutching it tightly but not yet turning it. "You came that day because you thought you were finally whole," she said softly. "But you're not. I don't know if you'll ever be. But…House…that never mattered to me. I don't want _all_ of you. I never have. I don't even know if that's possible. I just…I wanted _some_ of you. Any part of you. I know there are things you can't give me, House, but they are things I would never _ask_ you for."

She felt a burden lift from her after saying that, found it easier to turn the knob and begin to open the door. But faster than she could do so, he was behind her, his arm reaching out in front of her to firmly push the door shut again. She'd never known him to move so fast. Once – a very long time ago. But then life had gone back to usual and the memories of that House had been buried much like her hopes.

She was still – so still – while his breath blew strands of her hair against her left ear. "Stay," he breathed so softly that she was nearly certain she'd imagined it. His tone was one of defeat that broke her heart. She marveled at how they came together in their hate and fury, they saved themselves in misery and loss.

Releasing the knob, she caught his arm, still braced against the door, pulling it across her. His right arm wrapped around her other side, hesitantly. They shared a sigh as he settled his chin in the slope where her neck met her shoulder. She turned her head at last, resting her forehead against his cheek.

"I'm…going to destroy you, you know that," he feebly attempted to resume his argument.

"And I'm going to break your heart," she said with a small smile. He turned his head, locking eyes with her. The smallest ghost of a smirk flirted with his features.

"Okay then," he said.

And, for a moment, it was.

_Fin._


End file.
